Philip Reeves (1931 – 2017)

Biography: Born in Cheltenham, Philip Reeves RSA PRSW RGI studied at Cheltenham School of Art and the Royal College of Art, and was appointed Lecturer at Glasgow School of Art in 1954. In the same year he was elected Associate of the Royal Society of Painter Etchers. He was appointed Head of the Printmaking Department of Glasgow School of Art in 1970, and continued in this post until 1991. He was the President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours 1998- 2005. He was a founder member of both the Edinburgh Printmakers’ Workshop, and the Glasgow Print Studio.
Philip Reeves exhibited widely and is represented in public and private collections throughout Scotland, and internationally. At first a print maker, his work later developed to have more emphasis on collage. Reeves was a virtuosic printmaker and is credited with reinvigorating the practice – he was vitally important in the elevation of the status of printmaking from that of a craft to that of an art form in Scotland,
‘He did not like being described as a landscapist, even if “landscape” was often central to his art. He was just as much a cityscapist, inspired by high rises no less that rural hills. But the abstract for its own sake often predominated. He was not an artist with a single motif endlessly explored and exploited. Every work had some stimulatingly fresh element.’ Christopher Andreae, Obituary in The Herald 03/04/2017