British Council British Council Visual Arts

Prunella Clough was born in London and studied at Chelsea School of Art, where visiting lecturers included Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Julian Trevelyan and Ceri Richards. During the war she worked as a mapping and engineering draughtswoman, after which she took up her career as a painter. Much of her early figurative work from the mid to late 1940s was based on the fishing ports of the East Coast of England. It was during this decade that she acquired her own lithographic press and made a number of prints, mostly in small editions. She also made etchings, again in small editions, and mostly given to friends. By the end of the decade she had begun to use monotype, first with printing ink and glass and later on lino. Throughout the 1950s her subject matter concentrated on urban and industrial landscapes and working people such as printers, welders, lorry drivers and factory workers. Later, following a retrospective exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1960, her work became increasingly abstract. She was awarded the Jerwood Painting Prize in 1999.

Further reading:
Prunella Clough: A retrospective exhibition, introduction by Michael Middleton, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1960