Kenneth Webb
Born in London, Kenneth Webb began his artistic career in the UK with a Slade Scholarship. He exhibited for the first time with the Royal Academy in 1949 and continued to pursue his studies in design that year in Gloucester College. In 1953 he relocated to Belfast and was appointed Head of The Painting School at the Ulster College of Art where his part-time assistants included Tom Carr, John Luke and Colin Middleton. During his 6 years in this position Webb had a solo show with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, founded the Irish School of Landscape Painting and was elected to the Royal Society of Arts. An array of solo exhibitions took place in subsequent years in Dublin and Belfast as well as in the UK, Europe and the US and Canada. In the 1970s Webb opened his studio in Ballinaboy, near Clifden and began exhibiting regularly with Kenny’s in Galway. Colour and nature are dominant features of Kenneth Webb’s painting with the West of Ireland marrying these characteristics of the artist’s expression and forming a crucial part of his vocabulary since he first arrived in Galway over fifty years ago. His garden in Connemara is a recurring source of inspiration for him,whether he focuses on its wild flowers, waterlilies, rock pools or turf banks.