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Carel Weight RA (1908-1997)


Carel Victor Morlais Weight, RA (1908-1997)

A unique painter of enigmatic, odd dramas in which exotic events can get transplanted to the suburbs, Carel Weight’s influence as professor of painting ensured he was regarded as a precursor for the revival of interest in expressionist painting.
Carel Weight was born on 10 September 1908 in Paddington, London. The only child of Sidney L Weight, a bank cashier, and Blanche Harriet Caroline, a chiropodist and manicurist of German descent, Carel Weight spent much of his childhood living with a widowed acquaintance, Rose Matkin, as an unofficial foster mother due to his parents’ working and social commitments.
Carel Weight was educated at Sloane Secondary School and in 1926, at the age of eighteen, entered Hammersmith School of Art. Here he met Ruskin Spear, who would become a lifelong friend, and studied under the tutelage of Clive Gardiner and James Bateman. In 1929, he was offered a scholarship by the Royal College of Art, but as it came with no grant, Weight was forced to turn it down as his parents refused to continue funding his artistic training. Instead, with £25 borrowed from a friend, he mounted an exhibition of his work in an upstairs room at the Cooling Galleries on Bond Street.

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