patrick caulfield, born 1936
artist
Leaving Acton Secondary Modern at the age of 15, Patrick Joseph Caulfield secured a position as a filing clerk at Crosse & Blackwell and later transferred to the design studio, working on food display and carrying out menial tasks. At 17, he joined the Royal Air Force at RAF Northwood, pre-empting requirement for national service. Inspired by the 1952 film Moulin Rouge about the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, he spent his free time attending evening classes at Harrow School of Art (now part of the University of Westminster).
Caulfield's paintings are figurative, often portraying a few simple objects in an interior. Typically, he used flat areas of simple colour surrounded by black outlines. Some of his works are dominated by a single hue. In 1987, Caulfield was nominated for the Turner Prize for his show The Artist's Eye at the National Gallery in London.[9] In 1996 he was made a CBE. He died in 2005.
Click below to view his life story, which is the transcript of a National Life Stories interview:
Source: Links to a transcript of an oral interview of Patrick Caulfield at the British Library’s National Life Stories collection.