Michael Andrews

Michael James Andrews RA (1928-1995) 

Michael Andrews RA was born in Norwich, England, the second child of Thomas Victor Andrews and his wife Gertrude Emma Green. During his last year at school Andrews attended Saturday morning classes at the Norwich School of Art where he studied painting in oils with Leslie Davenport. He completed his National servicebetween 1947 and 1949, nineteen months of which was spent in Egypt. From 1949 to 1953 he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art under William Coldstream, Lucian Freud, William Townsend and Lawrence Gowing. Fellow students and friends there included Victor Willing, Keith Sutton, Diana Cumming, Euan Uglow and Craigie Aitchison. In 1953 he spent six months in Italy after receiving a Rome Scholarship in Painting.

From 1958 he taught at the Slade and Chelsea School of Art. He held a fellowship at the Digswell Arts Trust between February 1958 and June 1960, in that period he shared a studio with Patrick Swift. In 1959 his painting A Man Who Suddenly Fell Over was acquired by the Tate Gallery. In the 1960s he painted works showing parties; later, the "Lights" series presented views from the air. Andrews was much impressed by a visit to Ayers Rock in 1983, but the works he produced toward the end of his life are of scenes from Scotland and London. In 1981 he moved to the village of Saxlingham Nethergate in his home county of Norfolk. He was a member of the Norwich Twenty Group.