Biography
Ricky Atkinson (b. 1928 Hartlepool, County Durham - d. 2022) studied at West Hartlepool College of Art, under Harry Thubron (1943–7), then the Royal Academy Schools (1950–5), under Henry Rushbury. After teaching at Leeds College of Art (1964–9), he moved to Canada, settling in Ontario, where he was dean in the faculty of applied arts, Fanshawe College, London (1972–82). Atkinson had a series of solo shows at Redfern Gallery from 1954, later ones including Mendel Art Gallery, retrospective, at Saskatoon, 1980, Concept Gallery, Pittsburgh, 1987, and a retrospective, Hartlepool Art Gallery, 2000. He was elected to the NEAC in 1956, and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1978. Group shows included at the Tate Gallery (1954–6); Richard Demarco, Edinburgh (1967); British Council tour , Tel-Aviv (1970); Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh (1980); and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (1984). He once said that his pictures were “records of journeys through the landscape … and also explorations into the existence of possible bridges between the physical structure of man and his empathy for the environment”.
