Ron Atkin

1984 Short-listed for a Gulbenkian Print maker’s award.1990-98
Featured in first and second edition of Dictionary of British Art volume VI, 20th Century Painters and Sculptors 1990/91 by Frances Spalding and Judith Collins, the Curator in the Modern Collection at the Tate Gallery. Also in Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945 by David Buckman 1998

An epiphany (from the ancient Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia, "manifestation, striking appearance") is an experience of sudden and striking realization.

In the “Philebus of Plato” (originally titled "Plato's Examination of Pleasure") Socrates says:

“I will try to speak of the beauty of shapes, and I do not mean, as most people would suppose, the shapes of living figures, or their imitations in painting, but I mean straight lines and curves and the shapes made from them, by the lathe ruler or square. They are not beautiful for a particular reason or purpose, as other things are, but are eternally, and by their very nature, beautiful, and give a pleasure of their own quite free of the itch of their desire; and in their way colours can give a similar pleasure."

A phrase that we like to use when trying to add a bit of humour to what might be considered a stressed out life is, “It’s all Greek to me.” But in this case I was studying the above quotation way back in the 1970s,when teaching painting to mature students at The Dartington Hall Trust in South Devon.

My friend John Hoyland RA back in the 1950s at the Royal Academy Schools -had the Plato epiphany… painting without a realistic form to prop up the intellect is a challenge ...

Royal Academy since 1950s

Plymouth City Museum And Art Gallery - one person show 1976

Dartington/Beaford Centre 1972. 2006.