Alan Kidd
Fine Artist
Alan was born in Glasgow, Scotland in November 1943. He moved with his parents to Southern Rhodesia in 1945, where he was educated at Churchill School, Salisbury. Alan passed away in December 2024 after a long battle with cancer.
Background
As a child Alan always loved drawing and he also did well artistically at school, so he decided to follow art as a career.
He decided to study in England where he attended Walthamstow School of Art from 1961-65. At Walthamstow he was privileged to have tutors of the calibre of Peter Blake, Fred Cuming and Ken Howard. He graduated in 1965 with a National Diploma in Design (NDD) in fine art. He returned to Rhodesia where he started a career in graphic design and illustration.
Career
Following a long career in advertising, graphic design and illustration, Alan retired in 2009 to concentrate on painting and sculpture. He explored a wide range of techniques in oil, watercolour and acrylic, alongside modelling portraits and figures in clay.
Alan continued to make art throughout his retirement, leaving behind a rich and varied body of work.
Likes
Alan particularly enjoyed portraiture, both in two and three dimensions.
Also painting landscapes, still life and drawing, painting, and sculpting the human figure although he would tackle almost any subject matter and enjoy experimenting with new media.
Exhibitions
Alan has exhibited in Rhodesia, Brussels, France, and UK. He regularly exhibited at Obsidian Art Gallery during ‘Open Studios’ and other themed exhibitions as well as being an active member of Oxford Art Society and Buckinghamshire Art Society.
As well as many private collections worldwide his paintings are in public collections at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury Vale District Council and two of his paintings were bought for The House of Lords collection.
The large self-portrait shown above was accepted for the Ruth Borchard 2011 Competition and exhibited at Kings Place Gallery in London.
Alan held a very successful ‘one man show’ in Thame at ‘Ballon Rouge Art Gallery‘ in 2014.
His last one-man show in 2024, ‘Through My Eyes‘ in Oxford, which was another great success.
Alan’s landscape paintings drew much acclaim at the Thame Art Crawl in October 2025.
As part of the South Oxfordshire Artweeks 2nd–25th May 2025, there will be a retrospective exhibition ‘Through His Eyes’ held in his honour.
Alan’s work pushed the boundaries of various media to produce considered, accidental, and random mark-making using line, texture, light, and colour, which were his prime objectives. His goal was to create contemporary work whilst retaining a traditional, naturalistic essence.
Associations
Alan was on the committee and held the posts of Exhibition Secretary and Website Coordinator for The Buckinghamshire Art Society.
He also exhibited regularly with the Oxford Art Society and designed the publicity for their exhibitions.