Richard Sorrell was born in 1948, the son of Alan Sorrell, the historical draughtsman and painter, and Elizabeth Sorrell, the watercolourist.

He studied at the Royal Academy Schools (Post Graduate Course), having also attended Walthamstow Art School (Pre-Diploma) and Kingston College of Art (Dip AD)

He was elected to the Royal Watercolour Society in 1975, served as Vice President of that society 2002 - 05, and was elected President 2006 - 09.

He was an Executive Committee member of the New English Art Club 1995 - 2006 and 2009-10, and is also a member of the Royal Society of British Artists (by whom he was awarded the De Laslo Medal in 2002). He is a member of the Small Paintings Group, the Art Workers Guild and the Chelsea Arts Club. 

He was a Governor of the Mall Galleries from 2000-06.

 

EXHIBITIONS

1971 - present Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions

1975 - present Royal Watercolour Society Exhibitions

1985 - present Royal Society of British Artists (featured artist 1993)

1995 - present New English Art Club

2009 - present Small Pictures Group

1975 DLI Museum and Art Gallery, Durham

1978 Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend on Sea

1980 Hayward Gallery, Lutyens Exhibition

1981 - 93 Agnews

1992 Cadogan Gallery

1994/6 Lynn Strover Gallery, Cambridge

1996 The Old Workshop Gallery, Norfolk

1996 Kentmere House Gallery, York

1996 - present LLewellyn Alexander Gallery

1996 – 2008 Manor House Gallery, Chipping Norton

1997 Leamington Spa Art Gallery (with Edmund Fairfax-Lucy)

1997 - 09 Langham Fine Art

1997 - present Thompson’s Gallery, Stow on the Wold and Marylebone

Woodgates Gallery, East Bergholt

Brian Sinfield Gallery

2002/3 Guildford Arts (Mill Gallery)

1985 – present Art in Action

2002 - 06 Sheen Gallery

2003 Alresford Gallery

2003 & 2007 Alpha House Gallery, Sherbourne Dorset

2003 - present Galleries Sternberg, Chicago

2008 Chappel Galleries, Essex

2009 Rainyday Gallery, Penzance

2010 - present Fosse Gallery, Stow on the Wold

2010 Rowley Fine Art , Winchester

2010 -12 Petleys Gallery

2015 Works on Paper Fair

2016 Artichoke Gallery, Ticehurst, E Sussex

2017 Wolfson College, Cambridge solo show and lecture

2018 Bankside Gallery, London (solo) ‘Brexhibition’

2019 Panter and Hall, London (solo) ‘Some things I have noticed’

2019 The Table, Hay on Wye (solo)

2021 The Table, Hay on Wye

 

COLLECTIONS

Victoria and Albert Museum: aerial view of Channel Tunnel workings at Shakespeare cliff, with supporting material and drawings.
The National Trust: aerial views of Blickling, Ickworth, Uppark and paintings of Calke Abbey, Flatford Mill, Oakhurst Cottage, Surrey
The Museum of London
The Faringdon Collection

Norwich City Council

The Courtauld Institute

Godalming Museum

Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend on Sea

Basildon Arts Trust

 

In 2001 Richard Sorrell presented a picture of her Centenary parade to HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

 

During the Lockdown, Richard Sorrell has discovered TetraPak etching and worked on larger watercolours as well as oil paintings, and making extensive gardens and landscapes. 

 

One of these watercolours, ‘Red Room’, is included in the Fabriano 2022 biennale. This picture is important because it stands as a moment of discovery in my work. The painting, which is purposefully very simple, was developed from a tiny sketch and a memory of a girl standing with her hands behind her head. The shapes of the composition were carefully arranged before starting the painting, and the picture was painted rapidly in very restricted intense colour. The result is a calm and balanced composition of a relationship with a powerful immediacy.

About Richard Sorrell

Richard Sorrell is a painter of invented figurative paintings – people doing things. 

The pictures are inventions or reinventions of reality based on a lifetime of looking, and built up from sketches, ideas, and growing out of the process of painting itself.

Sorrell works in oil and acrylic as well as in watercolour. 

He is interested in drawing and colour and pattern. 

His career started as a predominantly landscape, portrait and still life painter, but gradually moved, from about 1990 towards inventions.

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Higher Hellangove Farm, Badgers Cross, Gulval,
Penzance, Cornwall TR20 8XD

 

Tel: 01736 369 613 or 07979 514618

 

www.richardsorrell.co.uk
sorrellr@aol.com 

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