Modern-British

Peter Darach was born Peter Milliband in Derbyshire in 1940. Until his late 20’s, he moved through a typical career: from Derbyshire to the RCA, teaching in Oxford and Manchester. But in 1968 he’d come to feel the “reasonableness” of such a life to be in conflict with painting: he felt he had to search for “real” power in himself, partly through dreams. The decision, enhanced by personal trauma at that time, involved a complete overhaul; he became a squatter in South London and even changed his name.

Paul Benney has worked both in the United States and United Kingdom. His paintings are represented in many notable public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The National Gallery of Australia, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, NYC and The National Portrait Gallery in London, alongside many prominent private and corporate collections.

Colin Rhodes is an artist and writer. He works extensively in a range of drawing media. He also makes paintings, prints and objects. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, London and Art History and Theory at the University of Essex. He has worked in art schools in the UK, Australia and China since the early 1990s. He has exhibited his work internationally, including Australia, South Korea, France and, most recently in The Netherlands. He is well known internationally for his writing on art.

Stuart Hodkinson, who was born in 1940, experienced many interruptions to his early education as his father was serving in the Royal Air Force, hence the boy was forced to move to schools in various parts of the country. Hodkinson's parents had a very strained relationship, and the child lived for a time with his maternal grandparents. He was later sent to boarding school, which he hated. In 1957 his father committed suicide, which had a profound effect on the youngster. Only a year later his mother remarried.

William Freeman’s work has certain superficial links with the English romantic tradition and the dank and desolate air to be found in the paintings of the Neopolitan painter Salvator Rosa. However, his conventional early and middle periods, mostly genre scenes, stand in stark contrast to the visionary and *startlingly modern landscapes, often with single isolated figures, that be produced after 1910 following a depressive illness and possible mental breakdown.