We have recently learned, to our great sadness, that our friend, the artist Tony Birks-Hay, died of an aortic aneurism while on holiday in France with his wife Leslie.

As a painter he was influenced by Cezanne, Matisse, Bomberg and the Scottish Colourists, while his mentor and teacher Henry Moore was an influence on him as a sculptor.

He was born in Manchester in 1937 and trained at the Slade School of Art from 1955-58, where he won the Slade Sculpture Prize. From 1959-63 he was a lecturer at Oxford School of Art, which is where Jane, at 18, became his student in 1962.

They became and remained close friends thereafter, and he and Leslie both helped with the design of a number of Jane’s books. Jane was pleased and proud to be able, in her turn, to write the introduction to ‘Tony Birks-Hay: A passion for paint’, (Stenlake Publishing Ltd., 2009).

(To learn more about Tony and his work, click on this paragraph which will take you to his website.)

Meanwhile, here are a few lines that Jane wrote yesterday about how important Tony was in her life.

Such a sudden shock!

Tony was my first Art teacher at the Oxford Art College, my mentor and my very best friend. I have known him for over 50 years!

We always shared such similar ideas in Art and philosophy, and he taught me so much .. while I was only able to introduce him to drawing movement; and so, by hiring Butoh Dancers, would draw flat out as they whirled and danced around. We both loved drawing stretch and whirl!

The very last time I saw Tony, he was able to come, at last, to 'draw in the dark' with me from my friend's box at the Ballet Dress Rehearsals at Covent Garden. And his dancer drawings were very good … yet another new direction for him to try!

Both Tony and Leslie helped me with almost every book I wrote. Tony introduced me to the terrible Colin Haycraft at 'Duckworth's' for my first book, 'A Stitch in Time', and Leslie read 'Below the Green Pond', my very first children's novel, out loud to Ad when he was very young.

Tony's written work was always so analytic and clear - he hated fussiness of any kind. His sculpted portraits were mainly worked from the inside outwards, by placing small plugs of clay and batting them firmly into place until he reached a sound structure for the surface.

His paintings … well, they were something else. He was able to place one colour next to another so that they sparkled and scintillated off each other. I always felt that Tony belonged to the Scottish Colourists as he would 'draw' with his paint-brush, and used similar colour combinations.

I have many of his canvases around in my cottage to always remember him by.

But what a loss! He will leave a great gaping hole in my life, and I will probably go on talking to him for quite a long time in my head.

                  

                                                  

                                 Tony’s portrait of Jane (1963)