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Joseph Clark Collection

Fabian Peake

Born 1942, Rustington · Painting, textile wall pieces, reliefs, sculpture and poetry

Fabian Peake (born 1942, Rustington, Sussex) is a London-based artist and poet who emerged as a painter in the late 1960s and has since added textile wall pieces, cut-out reliefs, sculpture, drawing, photography and published poetry to his practice.

In the collection

About the artist

Fabian Peake was born in Rustington, Sussex, in 1942, the son of the writer and illustrator Mervyn Peake and the painter Maeve Gilmore (Hauser & Wirth, Teachers' Notes). He studied painting at Chelsea School of Art from 1958 to 1963 and at the Royal College of Art from 1963 to 1966, and from 1977 taught painting as a Senior Lecturer in the Fine Art Department of Manchester Metropolitan University (Hauser & Wirth, Teachers' Notes). As a student he met his wife, the artist Phyllida Barlow (1944 to 2023), with whom he had five children, including the artists Florence Peake and Eddie Peake (Messums).

He emerged as a painter in London in the late 1960s and later broadened his work to include tailored textile wall pieces, cut-out reliefs, sculpture, drawing, photography and poetry (Hauser & Wirth). Hauser & Wirth Somerset marked his 80th birthday with an eye either side, from 1 October 2022 to 2 January 2023, a show spanning six decades from paintings of the 1970s to new work (Hauser & Wirth). He had a solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Luzern in 2019, and showed Outside the Chord, recent paintings with earlier relief works, at Messums London from 10 December 2024 to 11 January 2025 (Messums).

Peake is also a poet. His first collection, Loose Monk, 41 poems written over 20 years, was published by Ridinghouse in 2014 (ACC Art Books). His work is held by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Arts Council Collection (Messums), which owns his painting The Red Moustache (1987) (Arts Council Collection).

Sources

  1. Hauser & Wirth, Fabian Peake. an eye either side, press release
  2. Hauser & Wirth, Teachers' Notes: Fabian Peake. an eye either side
  3. Messums, Fabian Peake: Outside the Chord
  4. ACC Art Books, Loose Monk
  5. Arts Council Collection, Fabian Peake
  6. Fabian Peake, official website
  7. Wikipedia, Maeve Gilmore
A room in the Joseph Clark Collection hung salon-style: framed paintings, drawings and photographs cover two white walls, with sculptures on a teak sideboard and a white plinth below.
Installation view of the Joseph Clark Collection, including works by Zhang Enli, Tamsin Relly, Glenn Ligon, Louise Bourgeois, Ray Parker, Phyllida Barlow, Bengt Rosenström, Antonio Tarsis, Hugo Glendinning, Tim A Shaw, France-Lise McGurn, Mia Chaplin, Fabian Peake and Yukako Shibata.

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