Jack Cudworth:THE PAINTER Jack Cudworth, who has died aged 80, began his artistic career in Dublin. His first solo exhibition was held at the Brown Thomas Little Theatre in 1969, and he later exhibited at the Davis, Caldwell and Barrenhill galleries.
His paintings were selected for Royal Hibernian Academy and Oireachtas exhibitions as well as the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. He later exhibited with the Royal Academy and Royal Scottish Academy.
His work was eclectic in style, which did not please some critics, and reflected a range of influences from early Dutch art to the pre-Raphaelites to abstract art.
Known for his meticulous approach, he was seen as a romantic painter possessed of the old fashioned virtues of discipline and care.
Born in Leeds on St Patrick’s Day in 1930, he was one of three children of Horace and Ada Cudworth. He studied painting at the Leeds College of Art and graduated in 1953.
He got married that year and came to Dublin for a short stay. Attracted by the Irish way of life and the beauty of the countryside, he decided to live in Ireland.
He worked as a designer and illustrator in a number of advertising agencies, including Janus and O’Kennedy-Brindley. In 1959, he won first prize in the professional category of a poster competition sponsored by the Institute of Creative Advertising and Design.
His debut solo exhibition at Brown Thomas was positively reviewed. Brian Fallon in The Irish Times described him as a “painter of promise”, writing that the “entire exhibition has an air of assurance and technical fluency”.
Bruce Arnold of the Irish Independentwelcomed a "wide range of really rather impressive work".
He was fascinated with his adopted city and loved to draw and paint what still remained of old Dublin.
His Roadside Pub was deemed to be one of the successes of the RHA exhibition in 1970, but Brian Fallon was less impressed by his solo exhibition at the Davis gallery a year later.
“The suspicion grows that Cudworth’s jumps of style and mastery of pastiche are largely dictated by the fact that he has no strong personality of his own and little that is original to say,” Fallon wrote.
The criticism was echoed in subsequent reviews, but in 1977, Fallon noted that Cudworth had dispensed with “quasi-surrealism and sentimentality” and was showing work of “freshness and sensitivity”.
He added: “He is, in essence, a good academic of the old school.”
In 1986, Cudworth’s watercolours drew praise from Desmond MacAvock in The Irish Times for their “lightness of touch and clearness of colour”.
Three years later, however, MacAvock was unenthusiastic about an exhibition of work he deemed “predictable” and lacking in surprises.
Cudworth responded to the review, writing that he was inclined to regard predictability as a “compliment” and that he did not regard the “surprise or shock element” as either desirable or necessary in a painter’s work.
His paintings are included in collections held by RTÉ, Bank of Ireland and the Office of Public Works.
Cudworth returned to England in 1975, settling in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. He later moved to Harrogate, North Yorkshire, in 1984.
Jazz was another lifelong passion. A clarinettist, at art college he was a friend of guitarist Diz Disley, who in later life revived Stephane Grappelli’s career, and they played with the Vernon City Ramblers.
In Dublin, under the name of Phil Butler, he was co-leader of the Butler Fox band which was one of the mainstays of the city’s jazz scene. He continued playing on his return to England.
He is survived by his wife Jean, daughters Rebecca and Sarah and son Simon.
Jack Cudworth: born March 17th, 1930; died July 31st, 2010.