David Prentice
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and former art teacher
Art education
Art education is the area of learning that is based upon the visual, tangible arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc. and design applied to more practical fields such as commercial graphics and home furnishings...
. In 1964 he was one of the four founder members of Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
's Ikon Gallery
Ikon Gallery
The Ikon Gallery is an English gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace, Birmingham. It is housed in the Grade II listed, neo-gothic former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henry Chamberlain in 1877. The gallery's current director is Jonathan Watkins.Ikon was set up to...
.
Prentice's work features in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is an art museum located in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York. The gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art. It is located directly across the street from Buffalo State College.-History:...
in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
and the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Ashmolean Oxford, Bass Museum Miami, House of Commons Acquisition Committee Westminster, Betty Parsons New York, The Rank Organisation, Miami Dade Community College Miami, Arts Council of Great Britain and many private collections. He is four times winner of the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition - First Prize 1990, Second Prize 1999 and third prizes in 1996 and 2007.
He is married to the quilt art
Quilt art
Quilt art, sometimes known as art quilting, is an art form that uses traditional quilting techniques to create art objects. Practitioners of quilt art create it based on their experiences, imagery, and ideas rather than traditional patterns. Quilt art generally has more in common with the fine arts...
ist Dinah Prentice and since 1990 has lived and worked in Malvern
Malvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
, Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
.
Biography
Prentice was born in SolihullSolihull
Solihull is a town in the West Midlands of England with a population of 94,753. It is a part of the West Midlands conurbation and is located 9 miles southeast of Birmingham city centre...
and educated at Moseley Road Secondary School of Art, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
between 1949 and 1952, and Birmingham School of Art
Birmingham School of Art
The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, its Grade I listed building on...
between 1952 and 1957. In 1957 he did National Service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
in the Royal Artillery
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...
, returning to the Birmingham School of Art to teach from 1959. Prentice taught at the Faculty of Art of Birmingham Polytechnic between 1971 and 1986, initially in charge the experimental workshop, and has been a visiting artist at Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham University, the Ruskin School and the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
The Birmingham Institute of Art and Design is the largest British university art and design teaching and research centre outside London. It is a faculty of Birmingham City University and the largest, most successful department of the university.-History:BIAD dates back, in various incarnations, to...
. -
Prentice held solo exhibitions at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists
Royal Birmingham Society of Artists
The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists or RBSA is a learned society of artists and an art gallery based in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, England. it is both a registered charity. and a registered company The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists or RBSA is a learned society of artists and an...
in 1961 and 1963, and in the same year as the second featured in the Four Letter Art exhibition organised by Trevor Denning
Trevor Denning
Trevor Denning RBSA was an English artist, sculptor, writer, and former art teacher.-Biography:Denning was born in Moseley, Birmingham, studying painting and graphics at the Birmingham School of Art from 1938 to 1942 and teaching there between 1945 and 1985.In 1947 he was one of the founders of the...
. Prentice has since held over forty solo exhibitions.
It was at Prentice's 1963 solo exhibition that his painting Kate and the Waterlilies was bought by Angus Skene
Angus Skene
Angus Skene was a Scottish accountant, art collector and art gallery-owner, notable as the founder of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.-Biography:...
for £25, with Prentice delivering the painting to Skene's house in Selly Oak
Selly Oak
Selly Oak is a residential suburban district in south-west Birmingham, England. The suburb is bordered by Bournbrook and Selly Park to the north-east, Edgbaston and Harborne to the north, Weoley Castle and Weoley Hill to the west, and Bournville to the south...
strapped to the side of his Vespa
Vespa
Vespa is an Italian brand of scooter manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian.The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A...
scooter. Over the subsequent meal the two discussed the lack of support provided to local artists by Birmingham's existing galleries, and decided to start a new organisation to "invigorate the city with progressive ideas about art". Prentice recruited three fellow artists from the School of Art - Jesse Bruton, Robert Groves and Sylvani Merilion
Sylvani Merilion
Sylvani Merilion is an English artist and former art teacher. In 1964 she was one of the four founder members of Birmingham's Ikon Gallery....
- and in 1965 the four established the Ikon Gallery
Ikon Gallery
The Ikon Gallery is an English gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace, Birmingham. It is housed in the Grade II listed, neo-gothic former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henry Chamberlain in 1877. The gallery's current director is Jonathan Watkins.Ikon was set up to...
in a kiosk in Birmingham's Bull Ring. Prentice later said of Ikon's founders: "The stances of the original artists were all very different. Sometimes we were going in opposite directions, but we were all Brummies. We had all come out of the art school thinking 'we can do better than this' ... there was an element of wanting to shift the ground we all shared."
David Prentice has shown his work at John Davies Fine Art, Moreton in Marsh Glos. England in eight solo exhibitions up until 2010 since 1996. He has held solo exhibitions of his work at Art First London, Anna Mei Chadwick London, Medici Gallery London and Lemon Street Galley Truro Cornwall in the years following 1994 and up to 2008. Exhibitions during July and August 2011 to celebrate his 75th birthday are at John Davies Gallery Moreton in Marsh, Number Nine the Gallery Birmingham and at Monnow Art Centre, Walterstone, Herefordshire.