Paul Feiler (1918 - 2013)

The St Ives Artist influenced by Modern Constructivist and Abstract ideas

Paul Feiler was an abstract expressionist painter and printmaker. When Hitler came to power in 1933 the young Feiler was schooled first in Holland and later at Canford in Dorset. His parents joined him in England three years later. His father established a dental surgery practice in Harley Street while Feiler studied nearby at the Regent Street Polytechnic. Feiler furthered his studies at short-lived Euston Road School and at the Slade School of Art, 1936-39 where his peers included Pat Heron, Adrian Heath and Ken Armitage. At the outbreak of World War II, he was interned on the Isle of Man and later spent a year in Canada, but returned to England in 1941 becoming an art master at Eastbourne which had been evacuated to Oxford.

Paul Feiler joined the staff at West of England College of Art, Bristol in 1946, where he taught until his retirement in 1975. In 1949 he first visited Cornwall and within a short time, his work was becoming more abstract. Feiler held his first solo exhibition at the Redfern Gallery in 1953. It was a sell-out, and he went on to stage four more at the same location during that decade. In 1954, at the Obelisk Gallery in Washington, DC, he had the first of several solo exhibitions in America. In 1993 the Redfern Gallery rekindled its association, and Feiler had seven solo exhibitions there between 1993 and 2010. He continued to work every day until his death.

Other solo exhibitions include shows at the Grosvenor Gallery, Archer Gallery, New Vision Centre, Obelisk Gallery, Washington DC, Arnolfini, Bristol, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, Wills Lane Gallery, St. Ives and he was accorded a retrospective exhibition in 1995 and 2005 at Tate St. Ives.

Examples of his work can be viewed in many collections including, the Aberdeen Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Jerwood Foundation, Kettle's Yard, Glasgow Museums, Hepworth Wakefield, Laing Art Gallery, Leeds Art Gallery, Manchester City Art Gallery, Tate Gallery and V&A.

Abroad his work can be found in the Albertina, Vienna, Hamilton Art Gallery and Toronto Art Gallery, Canada, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Dunedin Art Gallery, New Zealand and in the National Gallery of New Zealand, Wellington Gallery.

He was married twice, both times to fellow artists. His first wife, June Miles, later married sculptor Paul Mount, and his second wife was the artist Catharine Armitage.

The Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, held a major retrospective in April 2018

Source: www.artbiogs.co.uk