Exhibition
John Hoyland: Imaginary Beings
Henry Moore Institute, Leeds
Free Entry
Free Entry
Born in Sheffield in 1934, John Hoyland achieved international recognition as an abstract painter, known for his powerful large-scale images, full of energy and feeling. In 1994, in the lead-up to his sixtieth birthday, he made his only mature group of sculptures. Working at the Royal College of Art in London, he produced around 25 ceramic works, which he described as “these mad little hybrids”. A new display at the Henry Moore Institute, Imaginary Beings, will focus on this body of work, bringing together a selection of four sculptures that will be shown in conversation with four related paintings.
Brightly coloured and loaded with creatureliness, Hoyland enjoyed the “freedom” of working with ceramics and “the possibility of introducing irony and even humour” into his art. The ceramics are an outcome of a change Hoyland made to his painting about a decade earlier. In the early 1980s, he turned away from the transatlantic High Modernism with which he had made his name, and sought a more wide-ranging, less abstract art, with imagery often inspired by his travels around the world, particularly to Bali and the Caribbean.
This display coincides with the presentation of the touring exhibition, These Mad Hybrids: John Hoyland and Contemporary Sculpture at Millennium Galleries, Sheffield Museums, from February – May 2025. Until this exhibition, Hoyland’s ceramics had not been exhibited since 1994, the year they were made.
Main image: John Hoyland, Sorcerer 1994. Courtesy The John Hoyland Estate.
About the artist
John Hoyland (1934-2011) was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire. He studied at Sheffield College of Art (1951-56) and the Royal Academy Schools, London (1956-60)
He had retrospectives at the Serpentine Gallery (1979-80), the Royal Academy of Arts, London (1999) and Tate St Ives (2006).
In 1982 he won the John Moores Painting Prize, and was elected as a member of the Royal Academy in 1983. He won the Athena Art Award in 1987. In 1988 he curated the Hans Hoffman Exhibition at the Tate Gallery. In 1991 Hoyland was elected as Royal Academician, and in 1999 was appointed Professor of Painting at Royal Academy Schools.
The ceramics in Imaginary Beings were commissioned by CCA Galleries, London and shown in May 1994. Hoyland wrote a statement for a small pamphlet which accompanied the exhibition:
“I was never really drawn to Renaissance Art – my secret loves were the archaic world and the arts of other cultures, Egyptian, Indian, Polynesian and African, which were largely considered to be “Primitive Art” until this century. Many of these influences were absorbed by the Modern Masters, Picasso, Matisse and Brancusi during the 1920s.
“I had not touched three-dimensional ceramics since I was seven years old until I began this group of work at the Royal College of Art this year. After my initial optimism at the “idea” of the project I began to realise that it was harder than it looked, but guided and encouraged by David Harrison we produced this group of work. It’s too early for me to gauge how I feel about it. What I really enjoyed was the freedom to “try anything”, the unexpected results with some of the colour, and also to indulge in the possibility of introducing irony and even humour into these mad little hybrids.”
John Hoyland, 1994
Audio resources
Listen to audio descriptions and interpretations of the artworks in the exhibition below.
Free exhibition tours
Every Saturday and Sunday from January, we’re running 30-minute introductory tours of our exhibitions.
They’re free and there’s no need to book, just drop in and join our tour guide at the welcome desk.
Guided tour
Free exhibition tours
14:00–14:30
Getting here
Our galleries will be closed over Christmas from closed 23 to 26 December and 30 December to 1 January.
Henry Moore Institute
74 The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 3AH
United Kingdom
T: 01132 467 467
E: institute@henry-moore.org
