Markey Robinson (1918 - 1999)
Markey Robinson
Markey Robinson, born James Markus Robinson, was an Irish self-taught artist and sculptor who worked in the Primitivist style.
From the age of 19, Robinson worked on merchant ships as a steward, traveling throughout Canada, the United States and South America. With the outbreak of World War II, he decided to take up painting, studied for a while at the Belfast College of Art, exhibited at the Ulster Academy of Art from 1941-1942 and even had success.
Robinson was known as a rather edgy and eccentric man who led a bohemian lifestyle. The subjects of his generally primitive and expressionist works included nautical themes, clowns, and landscapes of France and Ireland. By the mid-1950s, Robinson was on the lips of critics and the public, exhibited extensively, and was hailed as a genius by the Belfast newspapers. For the rest of his life his work was controversial: some considered him a gifted creator, others a populist who had outlived his early creative originality in the pursuit of profit.
| Date and place of birt: | 7 february 1918, Belfast, Ireland |
|---|---|
| Date and place of death: | 28 january 1999, Belfast, Ireland |
| Nationality: | United Kingdom, Ireland |
| Period of activity: | XX century |
| Specialization: | Artist, Glass painter, Marine painter, Painter, Sculptor |
| Genre: | Cityscape, Genre art, Landscape painting, Marine art, Rural landscape |
| Art style: | Abstract art, Expressionism, Primitivism |
| Technique: | Gouache, Oil |
| Medium: | Glass, Stained glass |
