Nigel Temple (1926-2003)

Penny Red I

signed and dated upper left 27.7.94

mixed media with collage

18cm x 14cm

Nigel Temple (1926-2003) was a highly accomplished artist, lecturer and writer who lived in Gloucestershire. He was a polymath whose interests spanned contemporary art, bookbinding, typography and architecture. The unique collection presented here, comprising his remaining studio works, conveys the full range of his intellectual and artistic interests.

Temple exhibited internationally and counted important twentieth-century innovators such as Graham Sutherland amongst his friends and colleagues. While parallels may be drawn between his work and that of famous modernists such as Sutherland and John Piper, Temple nevertheless established a sophisticated and evocative style that was entirely his own. He was also a well-regarded architectural historian, writing numerous books on the architecture of John Nash and the vernacular buildings of his hometown of Farnham.

While he worked across a range of different media, Temple largely specialised in an idiosyncratic form of collage that combined his twin passions of bookbinding and architecture. Temple generally used found materials, particularly discarded book bindings, to create artworks that are, at first glance, abstract and mysterious. Yet they gradually draw the viewer in with their witty titles and the evocatively distressed texture of their source materials. They often suggest personal memories and specific architectural sites, and are imbued with an uncanny sense of place. Chorley’s are delighted to bring Nigel Temple’s studio works to auction.

For further information concerning the artist and his work, please see: https://nigeltemple.co.uk/