Joe Tilson, a Member of the British Pop Art Movement, has died Aged 95

Joe Tilson was born on 24 August 1928. He was in the Royal Air Force from 1946 to 1949. He studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art from 1949 until 1952, and then at the Royal College of Art until 1955.

In 1955 he received a Rome Prize, and went to Italy for two years. After his return to London in 1957, he spent five years teaching at Saint Martin’s starting from 1958.

Later, he moved on to teach at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, The School of Visual Arts in New York, and the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in Hamburg. In 1961 Joe Tilson exhibited at the Paris Biennale.

Tilson’s first one-man shows were held at the Marlborough Gallery, London in 1962 and at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool in 1963. His work first gained international exposure at the XXXII Venice Biennale, leading to his first retrospective at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam in 1964. Further retrospective exhibitions were held at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1979 and at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol in 1984. Tilson has continued to exhibit regularly in solo shows throughout the world and a major retrospective, Joe Tilson: Pop to Present, was held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (Sackler Galleries) from 14 March to 12 April 2002.

Among Tilson’s awards are the Gulbenkian Foundation Prize in 1960 and the Grand Prix d’Honneur, Biennale of Ljubljana in 1996, the year in which he was invited to paint the banner for the Palio, Siena. He was elected Royal Academician in 1991 and lived and worked in London and Cortona, Tuscany.

Main Image :Joe Tilson, Stained glass window - Rosslyn Chapel, Edinburgh