Neil Shawcross


Neil Shawcross is an artist born in Kearsley, Lancashire, England, and resident in Northern Ireland since 1962. Primarily a portrait painter, his subjects have included novelist Francis Stuart, former Lord Mayor of Belfast David Cook, footballer Derek Dougan and fellow artists Colin Middleton and Terry Frost. He also paints the figure and still life, taking a self-consciously childlike approach to composition and colour. His work also includes printmaking, and he has designed stained glass for the Ulster Museum and St. Colman's Church, Lambeg, County Antrim. He lives in Hillsborough, County Down.

Education and early life

Shawcross studied at Bolton College of Art from 1955 to 1958, and Lancaster College of Art from 1958 to 1960, before moving to Belfast in 1962 to take up a part-time lecturer's post at the Belfast College of Art, becoming full-time in 1968. He continued to lecture there until his retirement in 2004. He has also lectured at Pennsylvania State University in the United States.
Neil is a Patron of the charity YouthAction Northern Ireland.

Awards

He was elected an Associate of the Royal Ulster Academy of Art in 1975, and was made a full Academician in 1977. He won the Academy's Conor Award in 1975, its Gold Medal in 1978, 1982, 1987, 1994, 1997 and 2001, and its James Adam Prize in 1998.
Shawcross was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to arts in Northern Ireland.

Exhibitions

He has exhibited nationally, with one-man shows in London, Manchester, Dublin and Belfast, and internationally in Hong Kong and the United States, and his work is found in many private and corporate collections.

Works