The Art of Michael Fell

Andrew Wilton

Hardcover | 25.2 x 1.5 x 30.4 cm | 160 pp

Unicorn Press | 2024 | 9781739164058

From the human truths, brutalist architecture and packed tube trains of 1970s London to the vineyards, Renaissance châteaux and riotous festivals of Gascon France, Michael Fell (1939 – 2023) chronicled the world he saw. His exuberant paintings and prints explore the sadnesses, humour and joys of ordinary people in work combining technical freedom with visual wit, compassion and delight.

Fell’s visions of city, town and landscape raise intriguing questions about the relationship between perception and feeling. Motifs and images of day to day life, captured with Fell’s fine draftsmanship, appear alongside literary, religious and aesthetic allusion.

The Art of Michael Fell, edited by art historian Andrew Wilton, explores the artist’s life, work and influences, with perspectives from leading figures in the world of art criticism, painting and print making. This richly illustrated study brings a new appreciation and understanding of the original, technically inventive and wide ranging oeuvre of a notably private artist.

Michael Fell taught at the City and Guilds of London Art School from the early 1970s to 1996, acting as Head of Foundation from 1984. He was Chairman of the Society of Designer Craftsmen between 1984 and 1987. In this time he argued for a policy by museums and public galleries of promoting a broader range of contemporary work.He was elected as an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 1999.