Timeline

Golding was born in England but educated in Mexico and Canada, at the University of Toronto. Following a doctoral thesis on Cubism, he began teaching at the Courtauld in 1959, was a senior tutor at the Royal College of Art and Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge University.

His abstract paintings are reflective and contemplative. As Duncan Robinson described in his Foreword to the Yale Exhibition Catalogue in 1989 ‘John Golding is a painter of international outlook. To describe him as a British artist is to run the risk of insulating him from his wider context; in discussing his own work, he refers not only to Turner, but with no less emphasis or respect to Cezanne, Orozco and Clyfford Still. From it all, and especially during the past ten years of full-time activity as a painter, comes pure Golding’.

The Hayward Gallery and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge have also held exhibitions of his work. In March last year, a display of Golding’s paintings was held at Tate Britain to celebrate the artist’s 80th Birthday.