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Keith Coventry

Born 1958, Burnley, Lancashire, England.

Trained at Brighton Polytechnic from 1978-81 and then at Chelsea School of Art in London from 1981-82.

Keith Coventry is a painter, sculptor and curator; he came to prominence early in his career as part of the exhibitions of Young British Artists at the Saatchi Gallery in 1995 and Sensation at the Royal Academy in 1997.

In his work he frequently deals with social and political issues which he combines interestingly with references to art history. His East Street Estate of 1994 in the Tate Gallery collection, for example, is a pattern of black rectangles echoing the paintings of Kazimir Malevich, founder of the Russian Suprematist Group around 1913. The shapes also form the ground plan of high rise buildings in a south London social housing project, which in his painting Coventry imbues with a sense of isolation thus constituting a critique of the State’s failure to promote the promised Utopian aims of post-war planning.

Coventry’s work has been exhibited extensively in the UK and elsewhere in Europe and the USA and examples are held in major collections, including those of the British Council, the Arts Council, Tate Modern, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis. In 2006 he was given a retrospective show at the Tramway Art Centre in Glasgow and was awarded the John Moores Painting Prize in 2010.


Untitled (Single Roman, Single Luton Fan)