Chris Orr | Artist | Royal Academy of Arts

Chris Orr RA (b. 1943)

Chris Orr studied at Ravensbourne College of Art from 1959 to 1963, Hornsey College of Art from 1963 to 1964 and the Royal College of Art, London from 1964 to 1967.

He went on to teach part-time at Cardiff College of Art, Central St Martins, London and at the Royal College of Art, London. He was Professor of Printmaking at the Royal College of Art from 1998 to 2008, and is now a Professor Emeritus.

Chris Orr has had many solo shows in the UK, including the Serpentine Gallery, London, 1971, the Whitechapel Gallery, London and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1976. International solo shows include Galleria Grafica, Tokyo, Japan, in 1980, Jay Street Gallery, New York, USA, in 1983 and Print Guild, Melbourne, Australia in 1987. He has exhibited regularly at the Jill George Gallery since 1978.

Orr was made a fellow of the Royal College of Art in 1985, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers in 1988 and a Royal Academician in 1995. He received an MBE for services to the Arts in 2008. In 2013 the Royal Academy published Chris Orr: the Making of Things, about his life and work. Orr lives and works in London.

Profile

Royal Academician

Engraver

Born: 1943 in London, England, United Kingdom

Nationality: British

Elected RA: 22 May 1995

Elected Senior RA: 1 October 2018

Treasurer: 12 March 2014 - 19 March 2018

Gender: Male

Preferred media: Printmaking

Works by Chris Orr in the RA Collection

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Works associated with Chris Orr in the RA Collection

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My studio life

Welcome to Battersea

“I’ve been in this studio in Battersea for 15 years, and we also bought the house next door seven years ago. It was built in 1895 as a stables, and was later the studio of Charles Sargeant Jagger RA, who produced many well-known memorials. There’s some evidence that Mervyn Peake was here too – so it’s got a few nice ghosts.”

A multi-functional space

“I’m here most of the time. It’s a multi-functional space – I use it as a gallery space, and we even had Christmas lunch here, with lots of candles and friends round.”

Drawing and thinking

“All of my drawing and ideas thinking happens here. The prints are done in Wandsworth mostly, and I go out to other studios too – in Berlin, Scotland or America. I’m currently doing a ceramics project down in Bristol.”

© Eamonn McCabe

"Everything I do has an idiosyncratic basis."

“I travel a lot and I always try get involved in the history and the stories. So my San Francisco works are informed by the 1848 gold rush. Everything I do has an idiosyncratic basis. It’s story-driven – but multi-layered and multi-sourced.”

© Eamonn McCabe

Duck houses and cricket bats

“This work features cross-dressing farmers, a duck house (a reference to politicians’ expenses) and a cricket bat leaning against the wall. It’s a running motif even though I hate cricket. My brother loves it and when we used to share a bedroom he always had his propped up against the wall.”

© Eamonn McCabe

"The studio is a bit like your brain…"

“The studio is a bit like your brain – where you store things away and forget about them. I’m not really a hoarder, not like Peter Blake whose studio is practically a museum…”

© Eamonn McCabe

The importance of drawing

“…so instead I use drawing as a way of keeping hold of things and ideas. I am obsessed with it. I draw every day and have books full of them.”

© Eamonn McCabe

Joshua Tree National Park

“This photo is of me and my daughter in the Joshua Tree National Park last year. It was extraordinary to be in such a barren landscape because really I’m a city person. The work on the left tries to capture some of that emptiness, but of course there are several little details and stories there too.”

© Eamonn McCabe

Mad about transport

“I have thousands of clockwork toys in storage, and cases full of trains. I’ve always been mad about transport – buses, boats, cars, trams… I think I wanted to be an engine driver when I was a child.”

© Eamonn McCabe

Source material

“When it comes to source material, the advice I give is to use bad references, because then you have to think a bit more. The danger of Google is that you end up using the same sources as everybody else.”

© Eamonn McCabe

A range of techniques

“At the moment, I’m doing a lot of engraving onto plastic – it’s very flexible because you can keep redrawing, and of course it makes working at a larger scale much less expensive. By contrast, lithography is probably the most labour-intensive and inflexible technique.”

© Eamonn McCabe

"Everything takes far too long."

“But all my work is very labour-intensive. Everything takes far too long. I don’t think things get quicker as you get older. You’d think you get better, but actually you get worse! I have a lot on the go at any one time, but a lot of them turn out to be turkeys… Those ones end up here.”

© Eamonn McCabe

Gallery

Chris Orr RA, The Small Titanic, 1993.

Counterproof etching. 670 x 922 mm. Photo: RA © Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Chris Orr RA - Selected CV
- Recent Solo Exhibitions
  
  2010 Galway Museum, Galway, Ireland
  Jill George Gallery, London
  2009 Daiwa Anglo - Japanese Foundation, London
  2008 Brook Gallery Budleigh Salterton, Devon
  2007 Hauser and Wirth, Zürich
  2001 Lewis Elton Gallery, University of Surrey, Guildford
  Jill George Gallery
  1999 Royal Academy of Arts (Friends Room)
  Jill George Gallery
  1998 Royal College of Art
  1996 Jill George Gallery
  1994 Jill George Gallery
  1990-92 Many Mansions, a travelling circus of the works of Chris Orr - Royal Festival Hall and touring British Isles
- Selected Collections
  
  Arts Council of Great Britain
  Welsh Arts Council
  British Council
  Royal Academy of Arts
  Museum of London
  Victoria & Albert Museum
  Science Museum
  The British Museum
  Ulster Folk and Transport Museum
  York Railway Museum
  Government Art Collection
  Tate Gallery
- Selected Publications
  
  Many Mansions, Chris Orr and Michael Palin, 1990
  The Small Titanic, Chris Orr and Kevin Whately
  Pinko Productions, 1994
  Happy Days, Chris Orr, 1999
  Semi-Antics, Chris Orr and Jill George, 2001

- Art Sales at the RA
  
  2 Hearts That Beat As One
  
  Chris Orr RA plays with ideas of love, ensnaring the viewer in a multiple-narrative image where every element has a similar or complementary partner.
  
  Within this hand-coloured etching, surreal pairings abound – a crocodile embraces a reindeer; a man exits the Ladies, while a woman exits the Gents. 2 Hearts That Beat As One takes its name from a cheesy song in a 1932 German musical film – one more prompt to the viewer that they need to read, rather than passively observe, Orr’s artworks. The print is available to buy through Art Sales at the RA.
  
  Buy now

Associated archives

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