Frederick Dubery

1926-

Fred Dubery is a distinguished painter whose work has been described as ‘quietly monumental’. Both his interiors and exteriors are beautifully composed and observed, revealing a profound sense of the values of the objects he is depicting and the quality of light. Paintings are composed through light, colour and tonality, drawing comparisons with the work of Chardin, one of the greatest of still life painters, and the interiors of the French intimistes, Bonnard and Vuillard.

Durbery's landscapes have the same intimate and evocative quality and a sense of a private world being revealed, from the majestic beauty of a cedar tree in his Suffolk garden to a meadow by a stream at a friend’s house. This delight in nature and the objects that surround him makes Fred’s paintings particularly beguiling. Francis Spalding, the distinguished critic of British Art, has written that his works ‘…are always painted from an unexpected angle and have a mysterious poetic quality’.

Fred Dubery was born in 1926 and studied at the Croydon School of Art and the Royal College of Art.  From 1964 he was visiting tutor at the Royal Academy Schools and was appointed Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy in 1984. He was also lecturer at the Royal College of Art until 1989. Fred Dubery was elected to the New English Art club in 1956 and was made an honorary member in 1996.