Roy Oxlade obituary

Roy Oxlade, one of the most impressive British painters of the past 50 years, who has died aged 85, was what is sometimes known as an artist's artist. Although his name is perhaps unfamiliar to the general public, his peers, students, teaching colleagues and curators held him in high esteem. He exhibited regularly in the UK and abroad, was a prolific and stylish writer on the art of many periods and an influential figure in adult art education.

His first major one-man show was in Vancouver (1963) and his work was favourably compared with that of his teacher, David Bomberg, whom he much admired, while his later paintings would reflect his admiration for the American Philip Guston. He was no mere imitator of either artist: indeed, his original output is tempered by wit, sensuality, a love of the absurd and a visceral dislike of artiness, which he felt damaged art, French art in particular. "The problem with French painting," he wrote, "is it all seems a bit Montmartre." Similarly, he derided the insipid Britishness of much postwar British painting. "We all have to struggle to avoid coming out like Vaughan Williams."

Apparently wild, spontaneous brushwork, bold colour and improvised images characterise his distinctive style, demonstrated in Olympia's Trolley (1989) and Green Loops (2005).

"Painting, is a funny business," he told the US writer and artist Marcus Reichert in 2003. "It falls between the extremes of music and literature – both of which can be done seriously in the head in the way painting can't." His love of poetry and classical music, especially virtuoso piano pieces, was a central part of his art. "I do listen to music while painting," he said. "Bach and Mozart especially offer a subliminal connection to sheer positiveness, to an impossible standard of excellence."

Oxlade had solo shows in London at the Odette Gilbert Gallery (1985-88), Reed's Wharf Gallery (1993), Art Space Gallery (2002 and 2013), and at the Gardner Centre, University of Sussex (1990), now the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts. His work was shown in various group exhibitions, in the John Moores exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (1962), the Hayward Annual (1982) and EAST International at Norwich University (1991).

He was an outstanding teacher, mostly at the adult education centres in Tunbridge Wells and Sittingbourne, Kent, where he presided over popular summer schools. His selected writings in Art and Instinct (2010) bear witness to his original insights and teaching principles: benign discipline and the need for personal vision and complete commitment. He expected to find in his students what he demanded of himself.

Roy was born in Tottenham, north London, the son of William, an engineer, and Emily. He was educated at Bromley School of Art and Goldsmiths, London, and was taught by Bomberg for two years from 1951 at the Borough Polytechnic (now London South Bank University). Later, at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 1976, his PhD thesis was Bomberg and the Borough: An Approach to Drawing.

While at Goldsmiths, in 1957 he married a fellow painting student, Rose Wylie. Their marriage was an extraordinary love match, an inspiring and touching union of restless intellects and imaginations. When Roy and Rose were so-called mature students in the 1970s at the RCA, they strolled about hand in hand deep in animated conversation. In those days, the RCA intimidated some students, but never the Oxlades, who mimicked the foibles, obsessions and absurdities of the teachers, including me, to great effect.

It is held that Roy was the student who once famously engaged a grandee member of the college council, Lord Howard of Henderskelfe, in intense debate about the meaning of art education. Roy referred in passing to the RCA as the Royal College of Hobbies and sailed on using his pet expletives, "piss-pots" and "hell's bells", interspersed with his mighty infectious laugh. Howard was not amused. Everyone else was delighted.

A lifelong Labour voter, no lover of monarchy, the establishment, or honours for artists or writers, he particularly loathed militarism. He regarded the recent national predilection for military heroes as sentimental claptrap. He derived considerable inspiration from TS Eliot, whose poetry he recited while driving one or other of a succession of brightly coloured Renaults at high speed along the narrowest Kentish lanes. At the Faversham golf club, he played off a handicap of 12.

Invariably he could be found at Sunday mass. He never lost his faith. He was intolerant of long-winded sermons and when he jammed his paint-stained fingers into the ears beneath his very full head of hair it was the sign that the priest had carried on long enough.

During my 15 years of teaching at the RCA, my students taught me far more than I taught them. Roy Oxlade was among the very best. He was, as he often said of others, a VGM: a very good man. Goodness was his hallmark.

He is survived by Rose; his son, Luke-John; his daughters, Elizabeth and Henrietta; and his two grandchildren, Albert and Rose.

Roy Oxlade, painter, born 13 January 1929; died 15 February 2014

It's What You See, Art Space Gallery, London, 2013, catalogue

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