JEREMY MOON

Jeremy Moon Biography

Jeremy Moon (1934-1973)

Jeremy Moon was born in Cheshire in 1934. His father was a lawyer, and in 1954, Moon went to Christ's College Cambridge to study Law. Although he had a natural flare for painting, and practised as a hobby in his spare time, Moon's decision to become a professional artist did not come until after he had seen the second 'Situation' exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1961. Here he was impressed and inspired by the large abstract paintings of artists such as of artists such as Bernard Cohen and William Turnbull.

So, at the age of 26, he enrolled at the Central School of Art. He did not spend a great deal of time there, already mature enough to have a clear idea of the type of art he wanted to produce. In 1963 his first one-man exhibition was held at the Rowan Gallery, London and he was offered part-time teaching posts at Chelsea and St Martin's Schools of art, where he worked alongside many of the 'Situation' artists.

Moon went on to exhibit at the Rowan gallery almost annually until his tragic death in a motorcycle accident in 1973. Of his career, he had once said that he had spent 'Ten years painting, and that is ten years of fantastic living that you can't express in terms other than the work…with tremendous exhilaration when I've made a work I was happy with, and depressions when I felt I would never paint another picture'.

Although Moon's paintings project a sense of careful and systematic planning, in reality his working methods were organic, involving a lengthy process of readjustment and development that in some cases led to his discarding whole canvasses as 'overworked'. Moon also drew incessantly, and his drawings were key in the process of developing his ideas. Particularly interesting was the impact of Moon's passion for dance on his work. On leaving Cambridge, he took ballet classes five nights a week for six months, and a choreographic element is easily identifiable in much of his work through his representation of movement, balance and harmony.

Of his untimely death, Sir Anthony Caro declared, 'It was a sad loss to art'.