Collection: Joe Tilson   1928 - 2023 

Joe Tilson was born in 1928 in London. He initially began work as a carpenter and cabinetmaker before joining the Royal Air Force until 1949. He then studied at St. Martin’s School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, London where he received the Rome Prize – an award which sent him to Italy for a year in 1955.

A particular motif Tilson returned to again and again throughout the 60s was that of grids, both as a formal device and a symbolic way of relating objects to one another. The resulting squares were often set apart from each other by their vibrant colours and the imagery they contained. Tilson is a Royal Academician and his artistic career was celebrated at the Royal Academy in a retrospective exhibition in 2002.

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