Peter Schmidt (artist)

Peter Schmidt (17 May 1931 – 22 January 1980) was a Berlin-born British artist, painter, theoretician of color and composition, pioneering multimedia exhibitor and an influential teacher at Watford College of Art. He was part of a generation of art school teachers in the 1960s and 1970s that had great impact on some students who later went on to work in art and music. He worked with Hansjörg Mayer, Brian Eno, Mark Boyle, Dieter Roth and had associations with Russell Mills, David Toop and Tom Phillips.

Peter Schmidt was born 17 May 1931 in Berlin, moved to England with his Jewish mother in 1938, and began painting in 1947. He studied at the Goldsmiths College from 1951–1953, and Slade School from 1953–1957. He won the Abbey Minor Travelling Scholarship 1957–58, which was spent in Sicily. On his return to England, he painted directly from objects and people, mainly in oils. His work was exhibited at Beaux Arts, with his first one-man show in 1961. He was the subject of a film called CUBISM AND BEYOND: DEPARTURES made for BBC TV in 1961. In 1963 he began a concept of painting he called PROGRAM. He produced a series of works inspired by music exhibited in a one-man show at the Curwen Gallery 1966. By this time his work had become totally abstract and he was focusing on ideas and systems. He performed an electronic music event called A PAINTERS USE OF SOUND at the ICA in 1967. Other music and performance work were at the Bristol Arts Centre, the UFO Club and, the Cochrane Theatre. He was also working with Mark Boyle at that time, performing in "Son et Lumiere" also at the Cochrane. The 1968 ICA exhibition "Cybernetic Serendipity", curated by Jasia Reichardt, had Peter Schmidt as musical director [5]. He performed ELECTRONIC SOUP MIX in 1969 at the Curwin Gallery, and FILM SOUND MIXES at the ICA.

In 1972 he produced a series of 64 drawings based on hexagrams of the I Ching. One of his last creative explorations in non-figuative work was a series of abstract paintings, which were illuminated by a special shifting colour light box, the electronics of which were specially designed. At this point his work gradually started to become figurative once more. In 1975 he had an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, shared with his students at Watford School of Art, "Painting on Clothes".

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