Stephen Partridge


Stephen Partridge is an English video artist who studied under David Hall and his career as an artist, academic and researcher, helped to establish video as an art form in the UK.

Life and work

Stephen Partridge attended Maidstone College of Art and the Royal College of Art. He was in the "landmark" video shows of the 1970s including "The Video Show" at the Serpentine in 1975, the "Video Show" at the Tate Gallery London in 1976, the Paris Biennalle in 1977 and The Kitchen in New York in 1979. During the eighties he exhibited widely and also became interested in works for broadcast television and was commissioned by Channel 4 television to produce "Dialogue for Two Players" in 1984, and "The Sounds of These Words", again for Channel 4 in 1989. The latter work was one of 19 productions for Channel 4 produced by his production company Fields and Frames Productions, under the series title TV Interventions which were designed to intervene in the broadcast schedule. Other commissioned artists included David Hall, Bruce McLean, David Cunningham, Ian Breakwell
In 1976 he co founded London Video Arts in collaboration with David Critchley, Stuart Marshall, David Hall, Tamara Krikorian and others. This acted as a promotional agency, an artist-led workshop and a distribution service. Hall and Partridge left the steering group of LVA in 1979 after a disagreement on future policy over non-selectivity distribution and promotion of artists' works.
He was an academic researcher at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design until 2019, and his major research projects include REWIND| Artists’ Video in the 70s & 80s and REWIND Italia: Italian Video art in the 1970s & 1980s. In 1984 he established The Television Workshop at DJCAD to support artists and filmmakers' production and access to high-level broadcast technology including the Quantel Paintbox. Over 400 productions were supported in this way from 1984- 1992 until desktop video pre-empted the need. Artists and filmmakers using The Television Workshop included Jeff Keen, Robert Cahen, Tamara Krikorian and many others.
Recent work includes a collaboration with Elaine Shemilt, "Quattro Minuti di Mezzogiorno", a HiDefinition Video installation. Exhibited in Fuoriluogo 15 - Una Regressione Motivata, Limiti Inchiusi Arte Contemporanea, Campobasso, Molise, Italy. December 2010, January 2011. The exhibition included work by Fausto Colavecchia, Douglas Gordon, and was curated by Deirdre MacKenna, Director of Stills - Scotland's centre for photography in Edinburgh. In 2012 he was awarded a Royal Society of Edinburgh Caledonian European Research Fellowship to study and research in Italy.
In November 2014, TATE London, bought his seminal work Monitor as an installation. It was selected for their 2014-17 re-hang at TATE Britain, BP Walk through British Art.

Writings by Stephen Partridge