Geoff Routh

“Geoff Routh’s obsessive and almost forensic scrutiny of the dilapidated Annie McCall Hospital and environs including the pond and garden – which has housed his previous studio for the last twenty years – has resulted in a significant and memorable body of work……… His artistic ancestry reaches back through Freud to Balthus and Courbet. There are many shared traits: fixity of purpose, industry, a belief in observation as the necessary foundation of painting and an instinctive feel for paint” (Tom Juneau)

Looking around my new studio in Woolwich I’ve already spotted potential subjects - including an old rusted ferry from Liverpool which is moored just outside my studio – and directly across the river is the old Tate & Lyle Factory with the large sugar container ships still continuing to ply their trade. At night the smoke and fumes pumping out from the factory emit great masses of vapour which, combined with the often dramatic skies, seem to be prevalent on this part of the Thames, create great subject matter for a painter.

1962 – 1963 Hornsey School of Art
1963 – 1966 Birmingham College of Art
1967 – 1969 Part time lecturer in Basic Design and Graphic
Communication, Oxford School of
Architecture
1969 – 1972 Lecturer Grade 1 in Drawing and Painting,
Foundation Studies, Nuneaton School of Art
1972 – 1978 Part-time Lecturer, Painting and Printmaking,
Fine Art Department, Liverpool Polytechnic
1978 – 1981 MA Student, Royal College of Art,
Printmaking
1984 – 1994 Part time Lecturer in Fine Art at: Sunderland,
Falmouth, Sheffield and Lanchester
Polytechnics
1995 – 1997 Visiting Lecturer, Coventry University
1996 – 2007 Life Drawing / painting tutor, Mary Ward
Centre