Joe Tilson

Joe Tilson was a prominent figure in post-war British art and a pivotal artist in the British Pop Art movement of the 1960s.

Biography of Joe Tilson

Joe Tilson was born in 1921 in London, UK. From 1944 to 1946, he served as a carpenter and cabinet maker before serving in the Royal Air Force from 1946 to 1949.

Following his military service, he resumed his studies in London, first at St. Martin's School of Art from 1949 to 1952, where he studied alongside Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach. He then attended the Royal College of Art from 1952 to 1955, where he crossed paths with Peter Blake, Allen Jones, Patrick Caulfield, and David Hockney. These artists played pivotal roles in the emergence of British Pop Art.

In 1955, Joe Tilson was awarded the Rome Prize by the Royal College, leading him to spend a year living in Italy. Upon his return to London in 1957, he held teaching positions at St Martin's School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. Later, he traveled to New York to teach at The School of Visual Arts.

He married Joslyn Morton in Venice in 1956 and together they had three children.

Throughout the 1960s, Tilson emerged as a prominent figure within the British Pop Art movement. Leveraging his background as a carpenter and joiner, Tilson created wooden reliefs, constructions, prints, and paintings.

His first solo exhibition took place at the Marlborough Gallery in London in 1962. Tilson's work garnered international acclaim following its exhibition at the XXXII Venice Biennale in 1964.

By 1970, Tilson grew disenchanted with the consumer society that Pop Art had brought into focus and disheartened by the political stagnation that followed the promises of the 1960s in Britain. He relocated from London to the countryside, undergoing a significant shift in his artistic focus towards cultural history as a new source of inspiration.

Tilson exhibited worldwide. His works have been featured in numerous shows at various galleries and museums, including Die Galerie in Frankfurt am Main, Cristea Roberts Gallery in London, Marlborough Gallery in London, Menhir Arte Contemporanea in Milan, Regents Street in London, Correggio Museum in Bologna, and many more.

In 2019, he debuted a new site-specific installation at the Venice Biennale in collaboration with Swatch. During the same year, Tilson was honored with the Charles Wollaston Award for the most distinguished work in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

Joe Tilson passed away in 2023 at the age of 95. Throughout his life, he remained committed to printmaking and established himself as one of Britain's leading artists, recognized for his work in prints, multiples, constructions, paintings, and reliefs.