George Hainsworth - Born in Leeds and attended Leeds College of Art and The Slade School of Fine Art, under William Coldstream. He gained the Gulbenkian Scholarship in Sculpture at the British School in Rome, which he attended from 1962-1963. He was Professor of Fine Art at Leeds Metropolitan University. Hainsworth embraces traditions of the past, exploring the human condition in a way that is deeply personal and authentic. He has worked at various periods with both figurative and non-figurative subjects and has dealt with representational subjects, religion, flowers and still life and mythology as well as delving into varying degrees of abstraction.
Hainsworth has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally since the 1960s, and his work is in numerous private, corporate and public collections in Britain, Europe and the United States. His exposure to the radical pan-European vision continues to resonate through his work.
Hainsworth is quoted as saying "Since I was a student, the term 'abstract' or 'abstraction' has been a term which has had a breadth of interpretation, from the specific to the vague. My take on the term is that of a distillation of the essential in the outer and inner worlds of artistic practice."
Alongside the lifelong expression of his ideas through painting, sculpture and drawing, Hainsworth has also enjoyed a career lecturing in fine art, culminating in his appointment as Professor of Fine Art at Leeds Metropolitan University in 1996.
"Although I am strongly concerned with abstract composition and formal engagement, my work is at all times figurative in the broadest understanding of that term.
Painting and Sculpture have been my prime forms of expression throughout my career, with Drawing as a constant autonomous and influential activity. Besides this, I was a teacher, which was integral to the development of my work and its underlying philosophy.
Over the course of my career I have explored themes that have interested me at the time and this flexibility has allowed me to rediscover paths I had forgotten. After working for some time with sculptural materials, a vase of flowers re-awakened a fascination with paint and colour which continues to give me pleasure and inspiration.
In recent years I have been working on and returning to a variety of themes which include the landscape and the sea as well as flower painting and still life. I work mainly in oil on panel or oil on canvas, but have a growing body of work where I have used pastel as my medium."
Hainsworth is a highly acclaimed and respected British artist.