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George Hooper (1910 – 1994)
“View Through a Window”
Oil Painting on Canvas. Signed with initials
lower right hand side
Picture size 20” x 30” (508mm x 762mm)
Overall framed size 28 ¼” x 38 ¼” (718mm x 972mm)
A joyful, colourful, richly painted oil of a garden
seen through a window on a summer’s day IMAGE
George Hooper was
a painter in oil and watercolour, and a teacher. He was born in
Gorakhpur, India to English parents, A.P. Hooper and Joyce Gayford. He
was sent at an early age to live with his Grandfather in England and be
schooled. After 2 years with the Westminster Bank he studied art at the
Slade School of Fine Art from 1930 to 1931, moving to the Royal Academy Schools
under Tom Monnington from 1931 to 1935. There he won two gold medals, a
travelling scholarship and the Rome Scholarship in Painting, which gave him two
years in Rome after a few months in Madrid between 1935 and 1938. During
World War II he served in air raid precautions and was invited to join the
Pilgrim Trust’s “Recording Britain” project. In the 1950s Hooper designed
posters for the General Post Office, Esso, Shell and other companies. By
then he had begun to teach at Watford Grammar School (from 1943 to 1945) and
from 1945 to 1977 at Brighton Polytechnic Department of Fine Art. He also
lectured for Workers’ Educational Association affilitiated to London University
from 1948 to 1977. A visit in 1958 to Italy appears to have
released Hooper’s rich fauvist palette, perhaps nurtured in India. He
exhibited his work from 1945 to 1947 at the Leicester Galleries with Walter
Sickert, Duncan Grant and Ivon Hitchens. From 1953 to 1964 he had seven
exhibitions at Wildensteins, Bond Street. He also exhibited with the
London Group and at the Royal Society of British Artists. Later shows
included Odette Gilbert’s Gallery from 1984 to 1986, Sally Hunter Fine Art in
1988, with a memorial show at Martin Parkin Gallery in 1995. A
retrospective was held at Collier-Bristow in 2003. Examples of his
work can be found in the collections of Victoria and Albert Museum, the British
Museum, Towner Art Gallery Eastbourne, Brighton Museum,
Ferens Art Gallery Hull and Hertford College Oxford. He wrote
articles for “The Artist” magazine and lived in Redhill, Surrey.
