Obituaries
Michael Reynolds RP, RBA, Rome Scholar
(1933 - 2008, aged 74)
For many years a greatly-admired Member of this Society, Michael Reynolds was a painter of blazing integrity. He had a remarkable grasp of the great interweaving movements in the history of painting and drawing, and a wonderfully thorough technical knowledge. His work is in important collections, including the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Collection, and he helped initiate The Discerning Eye Open Competition.
A gifted draughtsman and a painter of admirable quality, who worked to the highest standards and was never superficial, he believed that many recent movements in art were meretricious, and that almost all the great organisations that make up the present art Establishment had sold out to fallacious vacuities which encouraged theories that had no real content. This may appear to some as a reactionary stance, but he was a man of great liveliness of mind. He was sometimes irascible, and although I almost always rather enjoyed that aspect of his personality it certainly offended some people.
Though not personally ambitious, towards the end of his life he felt under-appreciated in this country. It was partly because of this, and partly because of his health, that he decided to spend his final years in Italy and Holland. His wife, from whom he was separated, died before he did. His four daughters survive him.
Michael Noakes RP
Link to Times article by Michael Holroyd on the late Michael Reynolds
