JOHN SIMPSON
Normally late but usually right
By Lynda Cookson
John Simpson held me spellbound for more than two hours, using simple words to say clearly and calmly what so many artists feel but cannot describe - from their need to escape to a private space to feed their compulsion to paint, to the irresistible pull of expressing uniquely the element of life that catches their passion.
Born in Fraserburg in Scotland, John spent four years at The Slade School of Fine Art in London and was strongly influenced by modern American painters like Rothco, Koenig, Ellesworth Kelly and Jackson Pollock. However, he said of an exhibition of Bonard’s paintings in London at the time: ‘I thought that’s really what painting is or should be about. It was very rich and his work stuck in my mind through all the influences even although it threw me into a bit of confusion, being older than all the contemporary stuff around.’
