All About The UK Pop Artist Doug Kemp
Doug describes himself as a colour and lineman who ‘colleagues’ anything seen or felt from his life and time span – it’s called zeitgeist these days. He has described himself, slightly tongue in cheek, as a Pre-Post Modernist and still maintains the term Pop Art is just an acceptable pigeonhole but not an all-encompassing description of his work.
Doug has just as much love of 10th Century Romanesque wall painting as the golden age of comics, which are all defined as line and colour people. He is an Industrial City Painter, which used to be called a Modernist fifty years ago. Many things and people have influenced him, in particular Art Deco, Fernand Leger and Max Beckmann. Picasso is widely quoted as having said “Good artists borrow, great artists, steal.”
Now in his eighties, his work output is still prolific, spending time every day in his Suffolk studio on large-scale paintings and preparation for printmaking. His work is narrative with dark forces within a comic style. With themes that embrace retro times, his characters are simultaneously humorous, tragic, stylish and visually dynamic.
Doug’s works can be found in private and public collections in the UK, Europe and USA.
Doug Kemp In London During The 1960s
Doug Kemp (Pop-art Doug) studied art at Walthamstow College of Art and was a graduate of the Royal Academy of Art Schools in the 1960s.
He had a Fellowship of the Gloucester College of Art and was a senior lecturer at Loughborough College of Art and Design from 1971 to 1993. Latest News & Video Interviews
Told to me on my 1st day of art School
“Douglas! The first thing you lose going to art school is your artistic virginity, then you spend the rest of your life trying to get it back”
Stuart Ray, head of school, Walthamstow
“Still trying Stuart””
Doug Kemp
Doug Kemp in 1968
Doug Kemp studied art at Walthamstow College of Art and graduated from The Royal Academy of Arts Schools in the sixties. He was a senior lecturer at Loughborough College of Art and Design from 1971 to 1993.
He has a repertoire of characters that appear and reappear in his paintings, prints and works on paper. His work is narrative with dark forces within a comic style. With themes that embrace retro times, his characters are simultaneously humorous, tragic, stylish and visually dynamic.
Doug Kemp’s work is enjoyed by collectors in the US and Europe.
Doug produces work as an acrylic painting on canvas works on paper and lino-cuts. His artist’s statement best describes what he is about: “People who like putting people into pigeon holes, place me in the Pop Art hole, but I’m not a Pop Artist really, although perhaps a first cousin. I’m an Industrial City Painter, which used to be called a Modernist fifty years ago.
I am a colour and lineman who ‘colleagues’ anything seen or felt from his life and times and it’s called zeitgeist these days. I have just as much love of 10th Century Romanesque wall painting as the golden age of comics, all line and colour people. Everything and
“Doug produces work as an acrylic painting on canvas, works on paper, silkscreens and lino-cuts.”
everyone has influenced me, in particular the Art Deco, Fernand Leger and Max Beckmann. It doesn’t seem to be popular to have heroes these days but I have no wish to respond to current developments, provoke debates, challenge, innovate, be groundbreaking, use the body of sight of inquiry or exploration or protest; OR any other verbals that are used today to justify non-visual work
that is about death (of spirit), not about life and the love of it.
This certainly puts me out of fashion most of the time. Painting for me is like marriage, sometimes rough, sometimes very rough, but you stay with it because you are committed and the bottom line is, you love it.
Artist Representation
UK: Norman Kemp / Luke Kemp
Via this site’s contact page
Galleries & Agents
Zurich: Danni Wahrenberger, Claudius Ochsner and Thomas Schafflützel.
https://gallerywahrenberger.com/
London: Paul Nitsche.
https://johnjacobsstudio.co.uk/
Doug Kemp Art Collections
Six decades as an artist with nearing 500 peices of artwork from Doug Kemp on this online gallery. The gallery collections pages help sort this wealth of modern pop-art into some form of order.
Doug Kemp’s Work By Decade & Format
Pop Art by decade and format. Ultimate Retro, some of Doug’s paintings are so old they could even be considered antiques in their own right.
Artwork Sizes
Later paintings (post 2000’s) are pretty much a standard size, approximately 50 x 45 inches / 127 x 115 cm, but some of the sizes of earlier works are goodish guesstimates, as Doug worked in feet and inches (and, from the scale of his works, lots of them) and many works are in not readily accessible storage with no accurate record of exact dimensions.
It should also be be noted that some pieces are not in Doug’s possession and possibly may not actually still be in existence.
Giclee Art Prints
Spelt correctly, Giclée is a French word for spray (little sprey!). This is a digital printing process in which a dedicated type of ink-jet printer is used with specialist inks to produce a high quality Art print. As an artist, I feel a Giclée print produces a better finish than other types of modern artist printing formats.
Linocut Artist Prints
A Linocut is a relief print that is produced like a woodcut but uses lino as the surface from which the design is carved as a template used for the printing. In making a Linocut, basically your design uses the raised (uncarved) areas for the different inks to print the same picture over and over.
Silkscreen Artist Prints
Creating screen prints – The inks are forced through a mesh screen onto the printed surface. This enables certain areas of the screen template to be made impervious to the printing ink, in effect creating a stencil. The ink that is able to pass through forms the printed image.
Doug Kemp Artist Video Interviews & References
Video references and interviews with artist Doug Kemp, a pop post-modernist artist, and his son Luke Kemp. These interviews take a lighthearted look at individual paintings and provide a unique perspective on Doug Kemp’s work. These interviews produced by Luke could also have been called “Interviews with my artist father.” Explore the vibrant and colourful perspective through the eyes of the painting artist #PopArtDoug.
City Guy
A stylish city portrait where movement, geometry, and character combine into one unmistakably urban identity.
Passing Strangers
A stylised scene of fleeting attention, where attraction and indifference remain impossible to separate.
Dancing In The Street
Dancing in the Street – Small Town Dramas v.5 transforms an ordinary street scene into a theatrical moment. A chorus line dances near Al’s Café while a lone figure moves below the watchful gaze of a larger-than-life woman’s face. Through layered symbols, bold colour and shifting structures, Doug turns everyday life into a surreal stage of music, memory and urban rhythm.
Doug Kemp Artist Photo Galleries
In addition to showcasing the artwork itself, we also included images of Doug alongside his work and previously undiscovered works on paper that had been in storage for over two decades. We are thrilled to share these beautiful and previously unseen pieces with you in our updated image gallery. Explore the vibrant and colourful perspective through the eyes of the paintings artist #PopArtDoug.
Artist Photo Gallery #11 Acrylic Paintings On Canvas
The 11th edition of the Artist Photo Gallery showcases acrylic paintings on canvas with and by pop post-modernist artist, Doug Kemp. The updated photography focuses on the sizes of the canvases and the vibrant colours utilised in Doug Kemp's signature Pop art style.
Artist Photo Gallery #20 Paintings And Prints
Artist Photo Gallery #20, the works of Doug Kemp, a pop art / post-modernist artist. Showcasing more photos of the artist with his work.
Artist Photo Gallery #18 Paintings And Prints
Artist Photo Gallery #18, the works of Doug Kemp, a pop art / post-modernist artist. Showcasing more photos of the artist with his work and his continued use of striking colours and stylistic approach.
