Albert Louden was born during the Second World War in the seaside resort of Blackpool, where his family had been evacuated from the East End of London. At the end of the war they returned to their home, but not long afterwards Louden’s parents separated, the young Albert remaining with his mother. He left school at fifteen with no qualifications and worked in a series of driving-related jobs. At the age of nineteen he felt compelled to make art, and for the next twenty years he worked part time, allowing himself the means to get by and purchase art materials, and the time to paint for pleasure. During the early 1970s Louden became involved in Marxist politics, but he gave up activism
when it began to distract him from his art. In 1985, he exhibited his work at London’s Serpentine Gallery and sold every piece in the show. His early works were drawings and watercolours, but he later went on to use pastels and oil paints. Louden’s art is primarily figurative, though not in a traditional sense. Figures merge, apparently abstract in the corner of a room, or looming large in streets and against tower blocks. Louden’s works reveal him to be an extraordinary colourist with a fiercely individual style. Spurned by some for his commercial success, he is a fine example of a living artist who, whilst a regular visitor to museums and galleries, remains true to his own vision, following his singular creative path free from the influence of others.Although he toyed over the years with higher mathematics and left-wing politics, from about 1962 Louden decided to concentrate on art. It was Victor Musgrave, the co-organiser of the Outsiders show at the Hayward Gallery, who discovered Louden in 1979.
In 1985 Louden had a sell-out exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery. He exhibited internationally having a solo show in New York at Rosa Esman Gallery in 1986 and his further shows included Boundary Gallery in 1990. Louden's paintings comprise of heavily distorted figures in urban settings and situations observed with wit, using a unique palette.
His work can be found in many private and public collections in Britain and abroad, including the Arts Council and Collection L'Art Brut, Lausanne. The Baltimore Museum of Visionary Art are about to show 30 works by Louden in one of their new wings.
No comments:
Post a Comment