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Campbell, Steven
Campbell, Steven (1953– ). Scottish painter, born and mainly active in Glasgow. After leaving school he worked for seven years as a maintenance engineer and steel fitter, and it was not until 1978, when he was 25, that he enrolled as a student at Glasgow School of Art. Initially he was interested in Performance art, but he turned to painting and soon made up for his late start, winning a Fulbright Scholarship that took him to New York in 1982, within months of graduating. He remained in New York until 1986 and as early as 1983 had two one-man shows, at Barbara Toll Fine Arts and the John Weber Gallery. These were well received, and Duncan Macmillan writes that his success ‘served as an inspiration and an encouragement to younger artists back in Scotland, for not since Gear, Paolozzi, Davie and Turnbull forty years before had a Scottish artist moved so effortlessly into the mainstream’ (Scottish Art in the 20th Century, 1994). After his return to Scotland in 1986, Campbell became the focal point of a flourishing group of figurative painters in Glasgow (see GLASGOW SCHOOL), and ‘his achievement has done much to shape the evolution of Scottish painting in recent years’ ( Macmillan). Campbell's paintings—often very large in size—typically show bulky figures of offbeat or outlandish appearance placed in strange settings, and he has a taste for unconventional titles (The Building Accuses the Architect of Bad Design, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1984). ‘His tweed-clad, mainly male cast of characters roam the countryside and become embroiled in bizarre, nonsensical occurrences. Birds, beasts and men compete in a hostile garden environment, performing strange rituals which defy nature's logic … This cultivation of the absurd … has parallels in the stories of P. G. Wodehouse (a writer Campbell greatly admires). The settings in Campbell's paintings resemble a theatre set with its claustrophic sense of space and tipped-up perspective. The characters, too, wide-eyed and earnest, recall actors from a second-rate play. Campbell works quickly, painting directly onto the canvas, inventing and changing elements as he progresses’ (catalogue of the exhibition ‘Scottish Art Since 1900', NG, Edinburgh, 1989).
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Cite this article
IAN CHILVERS. "Campbell, Steven." A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art. 1999. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. IAN CHILVERS. "Campbell, Steven." A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art. 1999. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O5-CampbellSteven.html IAN CHILVERS. "Campbell, Steven." A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art. 1999. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O5-CampbellSteven.html |
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Campbell, Steven
Campbell, Steven. See Glasgow School of Art.
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Cite this article
IAN CHILVERS. "Campbell, Steven." The Oxford Dictionary of Art. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. IAN CHILVERS. "Campbell, Steven." The Oxford Dictionary of Art. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O2-CampbellSteven.html IAN CHILVERS. "Campbell, Steven." The Oxford Dictionary of Art. 2004. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O2-CampbellSteven.html |
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Campbell, Steven
Campbell, Steven. See Glasgow School of Art.
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Cite this article
IAN CHILVERS. "Campbell, Steven." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. IAN CHILVERS. "Campbell, Steven." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O3-CampbellSteven.html IAN CHILVERS. "Campbell, Steven." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. 2003. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O3-CampbellSteven.html |
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