Lawrence Alloway (1926-1990) was one of the most influential and widely-respected art writers of the post-War years.   The crucial battle he waged through his criticism was with  Formalism, associated with Clement Greenberg, because it reduced art to only one type of value.   Alloway was wholeheartedly committed to pluralism and diversity in both art and society.   He can thus be considered as one of the founders of contemporary cultural ideals.

Alloway was in the midst of key movements and debates.   From his central involvement with the Independent Group and the ICA in London in the 1950s, he moved to New York  at the beginning of the 1960s.   There, he was a key interpreter of, first, Pop Art, then non-gestural, “Systemic” abstraction and, later, Land Art.   In the early 1970s he became deeply involved with the Realist revival and, through the influence of Sylvia Sleigh, the early Feminist movement in art, and went on to write extensively about the gallery and art market “as a system”, examining the critic’s role within it.
Professor Nigel Whiteley, Lancaster University, UK

Triple Portrait of Lawrence 1969
51" x 30" Oil on Canvas

Lawrence on the couch with Plant at Carbondale 1967
30" x 24" Watercolor on Paper

Lawrence in Bed at Ditchling 1959
20" x 30" Oil on Canvas
Collection of Nigel Whiteley, England