In a professional painting career that spanned over 50 years, Ronnie Copas progressed from his first solo show in the 1950s to teaching, scene painting, graphic design and fine art. His work is characterised by its distortion, influenced by Vorticism and modernist painting of the 1930’s. Ronald Copas was born in Lambeth, London, on 10 June 1936 to parents Albert and Ivy Holt (née Copas). He was the eldest of three children, and his younger brothers Roy (born 1942) and Eric (born 1944) would also become successful artists. While the family name was Holt, Ronnie adopted his mother’s maiden name to avoid confusion with his brothers during his career.
From age 15, he began to study drawing at Epsom Art School but withdrew to financially support his family. He worked first in a thermometer factory, and then trained as a mechanic in a local garage before returning to painting many years later.
He studied etching at Royal West of England Academy, Bristol and his first solo show was held in London in the 1950’s. For a few years, he worked as an artist in London but with little success, mostly painting domestic houses and offering the finished works to their inhabitants.
In 1969 he left London for Cornwall, where he worked as a boatman on St Michael’s Mount. He exhibited his work in group shows at the Passmore Edwards Gallery, Newlyn, and with the St Ives Group in Cornwall. He took commissions and soon established a portfolio of works from his experiences living and working in Cornwall. This led to his first major solo show at the Portal Gallery in 1977. It was a sell-out, and was followed by a succession of exhibitions with the London gallery.
By 1980, Ronnie Copas was living in Arundel, West Sussex, where his painting St Francis and the Wildfowl was acquired by the Wildfowl Trust and Sir Peter Scott. The canvas measured 6 ft by 4 ft 8 inches and was painted using his own medium of oil resin, that reportedly had taken him eight years to perfect. The Trust awarded him with an Honorary Life Membership in recognition of his work. The painting was originally on display at the Wildfowl Reserve in Arundel, but has since been acquired by a private collector in Munich, Germany.
In 1994, he was commissioned by Robert Pennant Jones to create a major work incorporating a scene from each of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays. Titled The Poet and the Painter, the 10 x 8 ft artwork toured the UK with the Royal Shakespeare Company before being permanently displayed in the Globe Theatre, London. In 1997, Robert and Ronnie published a book together detailing the commission and reproducing the scenes in print. The painting also features on the covers of several books, including the first Spanish translation of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, published by Debolsillo. There are five editions each featuring a different section of the painting – Comedies, Tragedies, Historical, Romance and Poems.
In the final years of his life, Ronnie’s eyesight began to fail and he was unable to work on any new paintings. Ronnie Copas died in November 2017, following a year of health issues.
