Mick Moon
Mick Moon (1937 - 2024) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was brought up in Blackpool before studying at Chelsea School of Art, London, from 1958 to 1962, where his final written thesis was on the late studio paintings of George Braque. He completed his studies at the Royal College of Art from 1962 to 1963 and was Senior Lecture at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1973 until 1990.
Moon is known for his paintings and prints that incorporate layers of marks, colour, text and collage. His first paintings were of colour-modulated strips but, by the end of the 1960s, he had turned to floor paintings; Moon made images by coating the floor of his studio with acrylic paint and imprinting this onto a bare sheet of canvas which he would rip away before completing it in the normal way. A work made in this manner won him first prize at the 1980 John Moores Liverpool Exhibition. In the same year he won the Major Arts Council Award, and in 1982 Moon travelled to Melbourne for an artist residency at the Prahran School of Art and Design. In 1984 he won the Gulbenkian Print Award and was elected a Royal Academician in 1994.
Cristea Roberts Gallery has published several print projects with Moon, including those that take as their subject matter signs of the past in changing areas of London and South East England. Traces of objects, whether it be old spice pots, bowls, and wine jugs, or decaying beach furniture, can be seen in his prints, which are a combination of screenprint and woodblock. Late works incorporated figurative elements of boats, trees and birds into his paintings. The bright intense colour of his earlier work was replaced by serene contemplative seascapes in various shades of grey.
In 2019 the Royal Academy of Arts published the first monograph on Moon, a definitive overview of this important artist, overlooked in his final decades, written by the late art historian, writer and curator Mel Gooding.
Moon had his first solo exhibition in 1969 at Waddington Galleries, London. Further solo exhibitions include Alan Cristea Gallery, London (2019); Bowles Sorokko Gallery, San Francisco (1996); Dolan Maxwell Gallery, Philadelphia (1986); Chapter Gallery, Cardiff (1985); Macquaire Galleries, Sydney (1982); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (1980), and Tate, London (1976). His works are held in numerous public collections including Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Tate, London; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Australian National Gallery, Canberra and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
Mick Moon passed away aged 86 on 13 February in London, England.
