Ian Potts

Ian Potts was a twentieth-century painter and educator, leading the painting department at the [[University of Brighton Faculty of Arts]Brighton College of Art], and exhibiting largely as a watercolour landscape artist.

Ian Potts’ work has been added to several public and private collections; including the [Victoria and Albert Museum], London; Arts Council collection; [Towner Gallery], Eastbourne; Hove Museum, East Sussex Council; as well as the University of Brighton's Aldrich Collection.

Early life

Ian Potts was born in 1936 into a mining family in Birtley, [County Durham], the only child of Noble and Annie Potts. His artistic talent was first spotted at Chester-le-Street Modern School. At 17 he went to [[University of Sunderland]Sunderland College of Art], where he studied fine art and won a scholarship to the [[Royal Academy of Arts]Royal Academy Schools] in London. His graduation in 1958 was distinguished by the award of the Silver Medal for Painting, which led in turn to his appointment to Brighton College of Art.

In 1959 Ian Potts married fellow student of the Sunderland College of Art, Helen Bewick. He began his professional career with a travel scholarship enabled attendance at the [British School at Athens]. This began Ian Potts' professional interest as a travel painter and painter of European and Mediterranean landscapes.

Career at Brighton School of Art

Ian Potts became Head of Painting during his career at the Brighton College of Art, as well as Deputy Head of Fine Art. He retired from the college in 1995, having enhanced the regional, national and international reputation of the institution, helping to guide its role in the new Brighton Polytechnic and later [The University of Brighton].

Josie Reed recalls in her obituary for the Guardian in 2014 that Ian Potts "was a popular tutor, known to his students – who included the Turner Prize winner [Rachel Whiteread] – as Uncle Ian. A skilled poker player, Ian held his own in games against the head of department, Gwyther Irwin, who reputedly had once earned his living playing poker."

Career as an exhibiting artist

Ian was a life-long traveller, bringing this experience to his experiments with landscape composition and the watercolour medium. Of Ian Potts' initial use of watercolour Mike Tucker notes. it was at first its mundane convenience that drew him to it, as the most practical means of taking note of what was immediately in front of him and visually so intrigued him. He would for ever be a great and curious traveller, and from the time, shortly after his graduation from the Royal Academy Schools, when a travel scholarship took him for a while to the British School at Athens, he would have sketch-book and box of watercolours always in his bag."

Ian Potts travel painting includes Italy and Greece, Egypt and Spain, as well as much of Britain. In the late-1970s, Ian Potts represented Great Britain in the International Painting Symposium held at Prilep in the former Yugoslavia.

"But however many distinctions we may detect, and at a time when abstraction and collage are popular, Ian’s work is remarkable for sustaining the representative tradition in English watercolour painting. While moving on from the Classical, the Picturesque, the Vernacular and the neo-Romantic styles that mark the history of English landscape painting Ian advanced the English watercolour tradition just as Cotman and Girtin did before him." Exhibition catalogue, 2001, Gavin Murray, Director of Keynes Gallery at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

Later life and legacy

Ian Potts said, “I see my watercolours as an extension to the history of English watercolour painting – absolutely within the tradition, but moving forward a bit, I hope. There is a direct line from artists such as J.W.M. Turner and John Sell Cotman to the present day. A more modern artist I admire was Edward Burra though he was working with a world inside himself, whereas I look to the world outside.” Quoted from Ken Gofton, Watercolour Artist Magazine, August 2014

William Packer, principal art critic from the Financial Times 1974 – 2004, said, "As a painter, Ian stands quite consciously – for he knew full well what he was up to – within the great English, or rather British watercolour tradition. So much is obvious; but simply to invoke the great names of [[J. M. W. Turner]Turner] or [[Thomas Girtin]Girtin], [[David Cox (artist)] Cox] or [[John Sell Cotman]Cotman] is perhaps to miss the point, for the tradition continued to develop and ramify through the next two hundred years."

Ian Potts died in 2014. A major retrospective of his work was held at the University of Brighton galleries July/August 2016.