Graham Stuart Ovenden (born 11 February 1943) is an English painter, fine art photographer and writer.
Some of Ovenden’s art has been investigated as possible child pornography by US and UK authorities and in 2009, he was prosecuted in the UK on a charge of creating indecent images but not convicted. In 2013, Ovenden was found guilty of six charges of indecency with a child and one charge of indecent assault against a child, and on 9 October 2013, he was jailed for two years and three months by the Court of Appeal. Following his conviction, some galleries removed images of his work from display. In 2015, a judge ordered that Ovenden’s personal collection of paintings and photographs be destroyed.
Table of Contents
- 1 Life
- 1.1 Victorian Children
- 1.2 Childhood Streets
- 1.3 HILL & ADAMSON Photographs. Introduction by Marina Henderson
- 1.4 Pre-Raphaelite photography
- 1.5 GRAHAM OVENDEN: ASPECTS OF LOLITA
- 1.6 A Victorian Album
- 1.7 States of Grace: Photographs, 1964-1989
- 1.8 Clementina, Lady Hawarden by Graham Ovenden (1975-01-06)
- 1.9 The Illustrators of Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking glass;
- 1.10 Victorian erotic photography / Graham Ovenden & Peter Mendes
Life
Graham Ovenden was born in New Alresford, Hampshire, into a Fabian household, attended Itchen Grammar School (1954–59) and was taught music privately by Albert Ketèlbey. He was a student at the Royal College of Music, before taking taking place painting around 1962.
He was tutored by Lord David Cecil and John Betjeman. He attended the Southampton School of Art, and graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1968. One of his most important teachers was James Sellars, an expert on Samuel Palmer.
He moved to Cornwall from Richmond on Thames in 1973 once painter Annie Ovenden and their family. He bought a cottage on Bodmin Moor when 22 acres of land and began constructing “Barley Splatt”, a neo-Gothic building. The style is eclectic and has been influenced by John Betjeman and Frank Lloyd Wright; some features are influenced by World War II aeroplane engines and tin mine chimneys. All the building was over and done with by Ovenden himself and by 1988 the house was nearly half finished. It was put on the shout out as an unfinished project in 2008 and sold.
Ovenden was a founder of the Brotherhood of Ruralists in 1975, along with Graham Arnold, Ann Arnold, Sir Peter Blake, David Inshaw, Annie Ovenden and Jann Haworth. The Brotherhood is no longer extant, although in 2005 it had a major London exhibition at the Leicester Galleries. They were supreme the name “Brotherhood of Ruralists” by the writer Laurie Lee.
His on bad terms wife is the artiste Annie Ovenden. Their daughter, Emily, was a singer taking into account the Mediæval Bæbes and Pythia and author, and is now a publican and Church of England priest.
Last update 2021-08-06