| Norman Ackroyd | |
| Birth Date: | 1938 3, df=y |
| Birth Place: | Leeds, England |
| Death Place: | Bermondsey, London, England |
| Occupation: | Artist |
| Children: | 4 inc. Poppy Ackroyd |
Norman Ackroyd (26 March 1938 – 16 September 2024) was an English visual artist known primarily for his etchings and work with aquatint. He lived and was based in Bermondsey, London.
Ackroyd was born on 26 March 1938 in Leeds, Yorkshire. His father was Albert Ackroyd, a butcher, and his mother Clara Ackroyd (née Briggs) was a weaver.[1] He attended Cockburn High School, then Leeds College of Art from 1957 to 1961 and the Royal College of Art, London, from 1961 to 1964,[2] where he studied under Julian Trevelyan and met his future wife, the artist Sylvia Buckland, alongside David Hockney, Mary Quant and Zandra Rhodes. Subsequently, he lived for several years in the United States. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Art in 1988[2] as an associate, then a Royal Academician in 1991, and appointed Professor of Etching, University of the Arts, in 1994. He was elected Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art in 2000, and in the 2007 New Year Honours was made CBE for services to Engraving and Printing.[3]
In the 1980s Ackroyd emerged as a landscape artist. Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design mounted a retrospective exhibition of these works in 2006 and kept an archive of his work. His works range from minimalist, nearly abstract impressions, to detailed images. His work almost never includes the human figure, the landscape subjects are often of old human habitation. His prints range from tiny etchings intended to be bound into books to huge etchings. His preferred medium for working directly on paper was watercolour, including a project pairing his watercolours with poems by Kevin Crossley-Holland published under the title Moored Man. He designed a number of large-scale, etched reliefs in steel or bronze commissioned for architectural projects in London, Cambridge, and Moscow.[4] Other completed projects include a mural at the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University, showing scenes from the Galapagos, and a door at Great Portland Estates in London, W1.
In 2009, with poet Douglas Dunn, he published A Line in the Water.[5] Ackroyd's working methods are described in an issue of Archipelago (No. III, Spring 2009).
Ackroyd's work can be found in several British and American galleries including Eames Fine Art which represents Ackroyd's work in London, and the Zillah Bell Gallery (which holds the largest collection of his work in the North of England), the Tate, the British Museum, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] He has been in several television programmes, including BBC documentaries in 1980, 2006, and What Do Artists Do All Day? (2013).[11] In September 2024 he was interviewed by Michael Berkeley on Radio 3's programme Private Passions.[12]
Ackroyd had four children; three daughters and a son. His daughter Poppy is a composer and musician. Ackroyd died in Bermondsey on 16 September 2024, at the age of 86.[13]