John Bartlett
John Bartlett studied at the Royal Academy Schools from 1991-4. Bartlett’s painting practice is eclectic. He creates large scale works highlighting historical happenings; notably the Poll tax riots or a memory of a past dwelling or moment. Other works are more cinematic, depicting masked figures in an apocalyptic environment, often fleeing from something in the distance, normally unseen but recognisably referencing the genre of sci-fi or horror.
He is best known to date for his monumental work History Painting 1993-94 which now forms an integral part of the Museum of London’s permanent collection. This contentious work received a great deal of media coverage in Britain over the years primarily because it depicts the 1990 Poll Tax Riots in Trafalgar Square. In 2010 it was reproduced as 9 x 18ft posters on the London Underground as part of a promotional campaign for the Museum of London. In 2017 it featured in the book London in the Company of Painters published by Laurence King.
Other career highlights include a commission for Heathrow Airport and large-scale acquisitions made by the Guildhall Art Gallery and the V&A Museum of Childhood. He also has a selection of his drawings in the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts, and these were included in their survey of 20th Century Works in the exhibition Driven to Draw.
In 2012-13 the Guildhall Art Gallery held a mid-career retrospective of Bartlett featuring over fifty of his paintings and drawings in an exhibition entitled London Sublime.
More recently he was included in the 2022 exhibition New Contemporaries & Modern British Art at the Osborne Samuel Gallery, Mayfair.
In 2023 he returned after a decade to the Guildhall with his large-scale work Cars & Chaos 1995-96 included in the exhibition The Big City.
Notable private collectors include Andrew Wilton – former keeper of the British Collection at the Tate Gallery and Nicholas Penny – former Director of the National Gallery, London.
John Bartlett was born in London in 1960. He lives and works in Folkestone, Kent.