Michael Kidner (1962)
Michael Kidner read History and Anthropology at Cambridge University before studying landscape architecture at Ohio State University (1940-41). He then spent five years in the Canadian army, returning to England in 1946. As an artist, Kidner is almost entirely self-taught. He left Goldsmiths College, London, because he disliked the course and during the early 1950s, worked as a theatre designer. In 1953 he met Andre Lhote on a trip to France and was subsequently introduced to Cubism and encouraged to move to Paris and paint full-time. At first he was intrigued by American Abstract Expressionism and ideas about colour associated with the Bauhaus. Increasingly, however, he became intrigued by theories of chaos, mathematics and science and these became the basis of his art. Kidner had his first solo exhibition at St Hilda’ s College, Oxford, in 1959 and another in 1962 at the Grabowski Gallery. He was included in the Arts Council Systems exhibition (1972-73) and has had one man shows at the Serpentine Gallery (1984); Gallery Hoffman, Friedberg, Germany (1993); CICA Galleries New York (1990) and the Henry Moore Foundation (1997). He was elected a Royal Academician in 2004.