Bennett Oates

Artist Biography

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Bennett Oates was born in London in 1928. He had a broad interest in painting and examples of his portraiture, landscape and animal paintings can be found in many private collections, but it is his flower paintings that have made his reputation.

Now acknowledged as one of the finest artists who have worked in this genre in the world, the draughtsmanship and technique of Bennett Oates bears comparison with the best of the Dutch School. But, it is his use of the gentler English hues where strong colours are used `jewel-like' in conjunction with white and pastel shades that produce the subtle quality and restrained taste that make his paintings unique.

Those knowledgeable in the English school will notice the influence of Gerald Cooper with whom he studied, after leaving Grammar School, at Wimbledon College of Art. At the age of 15 his first flower painting was accepted at the Royal Academy and he then went on to win a scholarship to the Royal College of Art.

It is coincidental that in Great Britain lived four or five of the greatest flower painters in the whole of the world painting in a traditional manner in the mid 20th Century. Gerald Cooper became especially well known painting flowers with a direct influence from the finest of the Dutch School of the 18th and 17th Centuries. Cooper was world famous in his lifetime with his contemporaries Cecil Kennedy and Harold Clayton. However, Cooper perhaps became the best known of them all though exhibiting year on year in the Royal Academy often “on the line” and either side of the Royal portrait of the year.

If you require any further information on Bennett Oates (1928-2009), please feel free to contact us.

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