Anthony Rossiter (1926-2000)
`Bassenthwaite in the Lake District` 1960
Stunning large mixed media painting by postwar British artist Anthony Rossiter, who studied at Chelsea College of Art in the 1950`s, when students were actively encouraged to combine media and experiment. This is a typical example of his work, very similar to the poster commissions he produced from 1955-74 for London Transport. The artist has used pencil, watercolour, ink,and gouache etc. to produce a lively and vibrant image. Add to this an unusual and dramatic perspective and the result is a dynamic painting. I can detect influences here of John Piper and Carel Weight amongst others. Frame is the original - interesting label verso denoting some time spent I imagine in a corporate environment, (there is also a note written on the frame to suggest hanging over the bookcase - a wise choice I think!) A large painting at 36 x 23 inches which will make a stunning centrepiece in any location. There is a lot of information on Rossiter on the net -please see extensive biography below. Work from the British Postwar Period is becoming increasingly collectible and represents a good investment for the future. 

Anthony Rossiter - painter,writer and teacher- born 1926, died 2000. Designed posters for London Transport 1955-1974.
Born in 1926, Anthony Rossiter was educated at Eton and studied painting at Chelsea Art School (1947-1951), which in those early post-war years was characterised by a spirit of common purpose and enthusiasm. To get a space in the Monday life-class you had to set up your easel on Sunday. Tutors included Robert Medley, Henry Moore and Ceri Richards. Fellow students were Elisabeth Frink, John Berger, Elizabeth Lloyd and Jeff Hoare.
In 1955 he moved to Somerset where he taught at Millfield School. In 1960 he took up a lectureship at the West of England College of Art in Bristol until 1983.
Winning an Arts Council bursary in 1962 allowed him to travel to the USA where he was invited to stay with Robert Frost, who encouraged him to write his autobiography “The Pendulum”. The book was published in 1966 by Gollanz and received an Arts council Award for creative prose and was linked to a retrospective exhibition by Reading City Art Gallery in 1967. This exhibition moved to the Bath festival in the summer of 1967. In 1969 a tour of selected works was organised by the Lincolnshire Association. In the 1970’s and 80’s he had various exhibitions in London (Cork street and the West End), and in many leading galleries in Somerset, Bristol, Bath Dorset and the Lake District. In 1988 he was one of the invited Artists in “Artists in National parks” exhibition, which was an important collection of contemporary British Art, sponsored, amongst others, by Conoco, the Council for National Parks and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Rossiter once wrote of his approach to art: “I paint and write because I want, without concession, to share the delight and awe I see and experience everywhere.” This delight is certainly evident in the painting - Spring Desk - that is in the RWA Collection which enlivens a mundane view through a vigorous and animated painterly style.
Influenced by Van Gogh, Soutine, David Bomberg, Kandinsky and Jackson Pollock, Rossiter’s subjects are predominantly landscape, often vivid renditions of stormy skies, gnarled hedgerows, decayed broken gates and stone walls, and frozen puddles. He did also draw and paint portraits, which included, most famously, a series of W.H. Auden, the poet. His works are represented in, amongst others, the following public galleries museums and collections in the UK and USA - The Victoria and Albert museum, The Bristol Art Gallery, The Reading City Art Gallery, London Transport, The Robert Frost collection Amherst USA, The John F.Kennedy centre Smithsonian institute Washington DC, The Ashmolean museum Oxford, St John’s college Oxford, Downside Abbey, The Anna Freud clinic Hampstead, The Government Art collection, Lord Weymouth’s collection Longleat, and many private collections in the UK and USA
Rossiter was elected RWA in 1964 and lived in Litton, Somerset.