Justin Knowles (1935 – 2004)

Biography: Born in Exeter, Justin Knowles was encouraged to take up art by school teachers but discouraged by his father, and so tried a number of other careers before visiting New York in 1965 and deciding to take up art properly at the age of 30. He enjoyed success immediately. Allthough not formally trained he was one of the most innovative artists of his generation. Writing in Studio International in1972, Patrick Heron contended that Knowles’s work was ‘eloquent and fertile’, and commanded ‘a sheerness of image that is absolutely masterly’. A fire in 1973 however destroyed most of his work, and he would not exhibit again until the 1990s. His final years were successful again, and Winchester and Exeter cathedrals commissioned sculptures.