Alan Cotton

Lots of artists have painted with a knife, exclusively or experimentally, and, of course, some better than others. Frans Hals did it; so did Constable. Depending upon his audience, Courbet was alternately praised and slated for painting with a knife, but his friend Zola championed it as “the instrument of modernity”. Cézanne’s use of the technique is often cited as a dress rehearsal for Cubism. Later on, American artists took up knife painting with such brash imagination they appeared to challenge paint itself: Hopper created clapboard facades with thick horizontal strokes; Diebenkorn defined the pitched streets of San Francisco; Theibaud used it to paint pies and cakes so tangible, they could be torture to view during long afternoon slide lectures. It is a potentially very long list, and one I had only begun to tick off during our first phone conversation, when Alan genially interrupted me: “We should write a book on it! Together! What do you think?”

Later, when we had actually met, I realised his enthusiasm and collegiate spirit were both completely sincere and typical of his character. To give a recent example: last June, as he drove me to Colaton Raleigh – the village he and his wife Tricia have called home for over 30 years – the narrow A-roads were so overgrown in parts they became leafy tunnels that reduced the view to little more than the tarmac. So far, the day had been overcast, but a break in the hedgerows suddenly coincided with another in the

clouds, and a stunning, rolling landscape appeared, its horizon dissolving into dark oceanic blue. I said I could smell the sea. “Well, it’s not far, actually”, Alan replied. “On a better day, we could see it.” When I casually mentioned I hadn’t seen it for years, he immediately took the turn-off to Sidmouth. He then drove me along the waterfront where, it being a weekday, I was able to enjoy a classic British summertime scene. A wall of Victorian hotels – balconies bristling with geraniums – was just metres away from a boardwalk optimistically lined with scores of empty canvas chairs. Within minutes, no doubt encouraged by the cloud break, cardigan-clad locals, armed with carrier bags and brandishing ice creams, arrived and laid claim to most of them.

It was a scene worthy of an Ealing comedy: a balance of hope, pragmatism and trouser-hitching canniness that is one of the most admirable parts of the national character. What’s more, this balance is true of Alan himself, and the career he has built through self-belief, dedication to mastering a particularly challenging technique, and his conviction that the only true measure of success is how much one gives back after it has been achieved.

Between 1988 and 2012 Alan had eighteen solo shows with Messum’s, and art historian Jenny Pery has published two monographs on his work. So his biography is well known and need not take up much space here. Briefly: he was born in Redditch in Worcestershire, one of four children, raised largely by his mother, a woman who also worked at several jobs to support them financially. She encouraged Alan to draw outdoors from an early age, primarily because she recognised his talent, but possibly also because she thought it might give him some respite from a crowded house in a grimy industrial town. After attending Redditch grammar school, followed by stints at the local art schools, Alan enrolled in Birmingham College of Art and University, followed by research at Exeter. Until 1982, when he resigned to devote himself to painting full-time, he was a Senior Lecturer at Rolle College, Exmouth.

His damascene moment, as he describes it, came in the early 1960s, when he and Tricia were living in St Briavels in the Wye Valley, where they had converted two miner’s cottages into a home and studio. Their local doctor was a friend of the art critic John Berger, and suggested he might be interested in seeing Alan’s work. At this time, Alan painted tonal scenes of village life

Alan at Hartland (photo by Paul Gillmore)

Hartland and Beyond

4. Devon – Hazy Light at Hartland oil on canvas61 x 61 cms 24 x 24 ins

12. Evening Across the Luberon pastel55 x 75 cms 215⁄8 x 291⁄2 ins

23. Piemonte – Vineyards in Hazy light oil on canvas61 x 76 cms 24 x 297⁄8 ins

48. Tibet – Late Evening Sunlight Over Everest oil on canvas36 x 36 cms 141⁄8 x 141⁄8 ins

54. Donegal – Billowing Clouds Over Moorland oil on canvas61 x 61 cms 24 x 24 ins