Michael Porter 'Vanitas'
oil and acrylic on paper . 44 x 38 cm


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Michael Porter was born 1948 in Derbyshire, UK, he currently lives and works in Newlyn, Cornwall. For the past 20 years he has worked exclusively from the landscape, always using locationas that he has been familiar with over long periods of time as the paintings incorporate both time past and time present. He respects the native tradition of landscape painting whilst reinventing it by means of his innovatory techniques and personal vision. His prolific technical experiments have been harnessed to a radical form of realism resulting in works that are equivalent to natural phenomena and which take the viewer into metaphysical realms. 

At the age of 15 he attended nearby Nottingham college of Art and later Derby College of Art completing both ungraduate and post-graduate studies at Chelsea School of Art, finished his academic training as Fellow in Fine Art at Gloucestershire College of Art in 1973. From 1974 he worked in the same studio in Hackney, East London until his move to Cornwall in 1997 during this period he lectured in most major Art Schools in London and the provinces as well as several throughout Europe. His work has been regularly exhibited in museums and contemporary galleries in London, Europe and America and has been the recipient of numerous major awards including The National Gallery Artist in residence, The Lorne Award London University, The Odin Award RWA, Honorary doctorate from Derby University and more recently Honorary Fellow of University College Falmouth. Collections include The Arts Council, The British Council, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Bolton Art Museum, Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, The Contemporary Art Society, the Department of the Environment, Derby Museum and Art Gallery, University of Derby, Deutsche Bank, Government Art Collection, Harewood House, Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, CT, USA, Leicestershire Education Authority, Mag Collection,Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, National Gallery, Canberra, Australia, National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, National Gallery, London, Nature in Art Museum, Gloucester, New York Public Library. Nottingham University, Reynolds, Porter, Chamberlain Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Smolyan Art Gallery, Bulgaria, Sunderland Museum, Unilever, Victoria and Albert Museum, Warsaw Contemporary Art Museum, Poland, Warwick University, Westminster Hospital, The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester and Yale Centre for British Art.