GRANT, Keith

Keith Grant (1930-2012) attended Willesden School of Art, 1952–5, then Royal College of Art, 1955–8, where he gained a silver medal for mural painting. In 1958 he won a travelling scholarship to France, in 1960 a Norwegian Government Scholarship, in 1962 and Icelandic Government Scholarship, in 1973 a Gulbenkian Award and in 1976 a grant from the Norwegian government to visit Norway. He was head of painting at Maidstone College of Art, 1969–71, later becoming head of the department of art at Roehampton Institute of Higher Education. Grant showed at Roland, Browse & Delbanco; Crane Kalman Gallery; Gillian Jason Gallery and elsewhere and was a member of the Society of Landscape Painters. He was the subject of a Look, Stranger programme for BBC Television, which featured his 1971 open-air sculpture at Shaw Theatre based on Joan of Arc. He also completed murals for Rhodesia House in 1959, Middlesex Hospital in 1972 and Gateshead Metro Station, 1981–3. In 1999–00 he was commissioned by Charing Cross Hospital to complete a large stained glass window, Millennium New Worlds. Dramatic, simple landscapes of the Norwegian fjords, moving towards abstraction, were a feature of Grant’s work, and he was also interested in the world seen from space. Retrospectives included Ice and Fire, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1994. Among later solo shows were Cadogan Contemporary, 2000 and 2003. Arts Council, Contemporary Art Society and Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge hold examples.