John Hoyland RA (12 October 1934 – 31 July 2011) was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters.John Hoyland was born on 12 October 1934, in Sheffield, Yorkshire, to a working-class family, and educated at Sheffield School of Art and Crafts within the junior art department (1946–51) before progressing to Sheffield College of Art (1951–56), and the Royal Academy Schools, London (1956–60), where Sir Charles Wheeler, the then President of the Royal Academy famously ordered that Hoyland's paintings – all abstracts – be removed from the walls of the Diploma Galleries. It was only the intervention of Peter Greenham, Acting Keeper of the Schools, that saved the day when he reminded Sir Charles Wheeler that Hoyland had painted admired landscapes and figurative paintings– evidence that he could 'paint properly'. Wikipedia
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