Kevin Geary
Abstract Artist: Kevin Geary
Medium: Acrylic
Website: www.kevingearyart.com
Look at my art, and make up your own mind. I do not tell people what to think about my art, nor how to interpret it. It is for the viewer to decide whether they like it or not.
Kevin Geary was born in 1952 in Lincoln, England, to Irish parents whose ancestries in Cork and Waterford span centuries. At the age of 13, he won an award of excellence for his work from the Royal Drawing Society in England. He studied Anatomy and Colour Theory at the Royal Academy in London, as well as having private instruction under the late Professor Carel Weight, R.A.., who became something of a mentor to the artist. At the age of 19, Geary was the political cartoonist for the Financial Times. An original cartoon of his from that time is in the collection of the late Sir Edward Heath’s Museum, Arundells, in Salisbury, England. At age 20, he had his first solo exhibition at the King’s Gallery in London, opened by the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who also lent Geary’s portrait of him to the show. Since the artist’s first one-man show in 1972, he has had over seventy exhibitions in Europe as well as the U.S.
For over thirty years Kevin Geary has received international acclaim for his commissioned portraits, which have depicted such prominent subjects as Pope John Paul II, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Golda Meir, Sen. John McCain, Leonard Bernstein, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and Placido Domingo, among many others. Works by Kevin Geary are included in the collections of several major museums, including the Primary Collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. In 2004, Geary stopped accepting regular portrait commissions to concentrate on his abstract paintings, which have been acquired by many major private collectors in Ireland, England, continental Europe, Japan and the US. Geary’s works have sold at Christie’s in London, Whyte’s Auctions in Dublin and Doyle, New York.