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Relationship status: single

College / University: Kings College, Newcastle upon Tyne

Member type: Artist

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?: Painting

I am...: an oil painter and art critic/historian, retired from university lecturing

About my artwork: I would like it to speak for itself

Artists I like: van gogh, vermeer, velasquez, courbet, monet, heartfield, pollock, brancusi, etc., etc

Interests: visual arts, politics, football, red wine

The centre of the artworld is: my studio

Comment Wall (12 comments)

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At 6:49pm on 25th September 2008, JOHN A WALKER said…: by all means contact pluto press

At 12:18pm on 6th September 2008, Rob Van Beek said…: I absolutely take your point about giving up self-censorship.

I find myself desperate to try things out and sod the consequencies. Good stuff emerges, as you say.

Yes, a lot of art historical works had an iconological background that would have been dead familar to its audience.

But that makes the narrative content redundant and unobtrusive, transparent.

The difficulty with unfamiliar narrative paintings is they involve a kind of mundane puzzle-solving which can be at odds with other aspects looking at work.

Apologies for responding sooner. I kinda lost track of where these comments were made...ROB

At 5:21am on 8th July 2008, JOHN A WALKER said…: re- art education - yes I have experiences decades of its ups and downs. I could write a book but the market for it would be too small. An ex colleague of mine - Lisa Tickner - has recently written an illuminating account of the Hornsey occupation in 1968.

At 5:15am on 8th July 2008, JOHN A WALKER said…: re illustration - I take the point but, on the other hand, probably 70 per cent of all historic art has illustrated myths, the bible, etc. After decades of harsh self censorship I decided - on resuming art making - not to reject anything in the hope that some good work would emerge amongst the dross. I want to make art that can comment on the world and is not just about adjusting red and green blocks of colour.

At 3:54pm on 6th July 2008, Rob Van Beek said…: Thanks for the bibliography. I wouldn't have minded penning some of these titles myself, but, alas, I lack application.

You must have seen some good times and bad in British Art education?

I have to admit that when I said your paintings speak for themselves this was not entirely meant as a compliment.

Temperamentally I enjoy the aesthetics of making art over art's more illustrative or didatic role.

I think good political art is possible, but both the aesthetics and the politics have to be up for grabs.

At 8:29am on 6th July 2008, JOHN A WALKER said…: PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
A Glossary of Art, Architecture and Design since 1945 (London: Library Association, 3rd edn 1992).

Art since Pop (London: Thames & Hudson, 1975).

Van Gogh Studies: Five Critical Essays (London: JAW Publications, 1981).

Art in the Age of Mass Media (London: Pluto Press, 1983/London & Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2nd edn 1994; 3rd edn 2001).

Crossovers: Art into Pop, Pop into Art (London: Comedia/Methuen, 1987).

Design History and the History of Design (London: Pluto Press, 1989).

Art and Artists on Screen (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993).

Arts TV: A History of Arts Television in Britain (London: Arts Council & John Libbey, 1993).

John Latham – the Incidental Person – his Art and Ideas (London: Middlesex University Press, 1995).

(with Sarah Chaplin) Visual Culture: An Introduction (Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, 1997).

Cultural Offensive: America’s Impact on British Art since 1945 (London & Sterling VA: Pluto Press, 1998).

Art and Outrage: Provocation, Controversy and the Visual Arts (London & Sterling VA: Pluto Press, 1999).

(With Rita Hatton) Supercollector: A Critique of Charles Saatchi (London: … ellipsis, 2000).

A Few 'Semiotic' Paintings of 1975, Unknown and Destroyed, (London: Institute of Artology, 2002).

Left Shift: Radical Art in 1970s Britain, (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2002). 1-86064-765-0 (H) £39.50. 1-86064-766-9 (P) £14.95.

Art and Celebrity, (London & Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2003).

(With Rita Hatton) Supercollector: A Critique of Charles Saatchi (London: Institute of Artology, 2nd edn, 2003).

Learning to Paint: A British Art School and Art Student 1956-61, (London: Institute of Artology, 2003).

FIREFIGHTERS IN ART AND MEDIA: A PICTORIAL HISTORY, (London: Francis Boutle Publishers, published April 2005). Hardback. Pages 208 , 225 illus (many in colour), bibliography, index. ISBN 1-903427-23-1.

(With Rita Hatton) Supercollector: A Critique of Charles Saatchi (London: Institute of Artology, 3rd edn, 2005).

WORK: Ford Madox Brown’s Painting and Victorian Life, (London: Francis Boutle Publishers, 2006). ISBN 1-903427-29-0, £20.

Rita Hatton interviews John A. Walker, Oranges are the Only Fruit: New Paintings by John A. Walker (London: Institute of Artology, 2006), 24 page illustrated booklet.

At 2:32pm on 5th July 2008, Rob Van Beek said…: Art and the Mass Media? I'm testing my memory now...

At 1:41pm on 5th July 2008, Rob Van Beek said…: That's right. I knew I had come across both the critical writer and the John Moores winner, now I can unconflate the two.

I remember BLOCK. When I finished art school I started to get bits of art history teaching but I decided that I didn't go to artschool to become an art historian and started drawing again.

Your paintings certainly seem to speak for themselves. All the best ROB

Didn't you write a book on the Readers and Writers imprint?

At 9:36pm on 4th July 2008, Rob Van Beek said…: Dear John,

Did you used to make abstract paintings? I'm sure I can picture one. Black and white perhaps?

And didn't you have a hand in Artscribe?

At 7:44pm on 2nd July 2008, JOHN A WALKER said…: Yes I would like to exhibit the Mourning work series together and have an essay on their origins and purpose but so far no art dealer has expressed any interest in showing them.