Derek Jarman was one of the most influential British artists of the twentieth century. His practice - as diverse as it was prolific - spanned painting, sculpture, film, writing, stage design, gardening and activism. Studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in the 1960s, Jarman was equally attentive to developments in film and theatre design as to painting, beginning his career designing the sets for Frederick Ashton’s “Jazz Calendar” at the Royal Opera House, John Gielgud’s “Don Giovanni” at the London Coliseum, and for the films of Ken Russell. All the while Jarman was gaining increasing recognition for his painting, going from exhibiting as part of the “Young Contemporaries” at Tate, London, to frequent shows at the likes of the Lisson, Edward Tohah and Richard Salmon galleries.
Jarman was an outspoken campaigner for LGBTQIA+ rights, and was one of the first public figures in the UK to raise awareness for those living with HIV and AIDS, announcing his own HIV diagnosis on radio in 1986. From there Jarman entered a period of prolific writing, publishing his celebrated memoir Modern Nature in 1991, an account that chronicled another of his crowning artistic achievements: his garden at Prospect Cottage, Dungeness, a site that continues to welcome visitors today. The canvases of his last years - assemblages of gutter press homophobic headlines, religious iconography, plants, rubbish, and fierce poetic screeds scored into oil paint - speak of an artist whose legacy precedes him.

Biography | Amanda Wilkinson Gallery