Cuillin Bantock

"There is a quality of purity and sublimity that we rarely see in art today. And the sublime elicits nothing less than awe." Akbar Husain, Writer

International recognition has come later for the 79 year old British scientist and painter Cuillin Bantock. Similarities in story have been drawn between Bantock and American painter Carmen Herrera who has only recently taken the American art market by storm at 94. Considered by some the British equivalent, with his late entrance to the market. Although Bantock is less rigid and softer in both approach and palette, both have strove for formal simplicity and a sense of colour and space in their work with scientific precision. Cuillin Bantock is a British Oxford graduate and professor of Zoology, expert in developmental cytogenetics and comes from a family of highly accomplished British composers.
He later became a 60’s graduate of Camberwell College of Art. He was born in the Midlands and spent his childhood on the wild desolate coastline of Northern Wales. Returning to full time painting in 1989 Cuillin applies his scientific knowledge to his painting juxtaposed with a natural flair for colour, texture, space and light. Working with what he calls a ‘catholic’ choice of media; oi...

Cuillin Bantock was born in Birmingham, U.K., in 1935.

He trained as both artist and scientist.

He read Zoology at Oxford University from 1955 to 1958 and was then awarded a three-year Christopher Welch Scholarship of the University for research in developmental cytogenetics.

MA and D.Phil degrees were awarded in 1965. In 1961, he studied painting for three years at Camberwell College of Art in London. From 1965 to 1989 he worked as a professional environmentalist in London and elsewhere, publishing several books and over twenty research papers in evolutionary ecology.

He returned to painting full-time in 1989

PRINCIPAL EXHIBITIONS

One-Person Exhibitions

Paintings, Galerie Marie, London 1991
Recent Work, Oriel Senig Contemporary Arts, Harlech 1994
New Paintings, The Cut Gallery, London 1994
Beyond the View, Homerton Hospital (Exhibition organised by The Whitechapel Art Gallery), London 1994
Outcome of a Journey, Grand Forks Art Gallery, Grand Forks, B.C., Canada 1998
Looking Out, deliART, London 1999
Emma Lake, deliART, London 2000
New Paintings, The Gestalt Centre, London 2001-’02
Ten Years – Work on Paper, Ardudwy Gallery, Harlech 2002
70 – 10, APT Gallery, London 2005
Cool Departure and other paintings, 2007-2008. SE 1 Gallery, London 2008
Reprise, Original Gallery, London 2010
Approach to a View, Highgate Gallery, London 2011


Mixed Exhibitions

The Royal Society of Painters in Birmingham 1956
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 1957
Pike Gallery, London 1992
Beardsmore Gallery, London 1992, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2004
Omphalos Gallery, Sandwich 1993
Woodlands Gallery, London 1995 (two-person show)
London Contemporary Art Fair 1994, 1995
Beatrice Royal Gallery, Eastleigh 1995, 1997
Harlech Biennale 1994, 1995, 2002
Woodlands Gallery Art Fair, London 1995
The Twentieth Century British Art Fair, Royal College o...