Keith Milow b. 1945

Painter and sculptor fascinated by architecture and the illusionary effect of artistic materials. Milow creates two-dimensional and three-dimensional images in a variety of materials, employing symbols such as crosses and cenotaphs, often in sustained series. He is concerned primarily with the object's purity of shape, the space it anchors, and the materials, textures and colours that transform it from literal symbol into an abstract construct.

Milow was born in London, where he worked until moving to New York in 1980. He studied at Camberwell School of Art, 1962-7, and the Royal College of Art 1967-8. He taught at Chelsea, Royal College & S.V.A. (NYC) Schools of Art. He was a Gregory Fellow as Artist-in-Residence at University of Leeds (1970-71) and was awarded the Harkness Fellowship to New York (1972-74). In 1971 Milow, among other innovations, established the technique of combing paint onto paper and canvas.

In 1971 he exhibited with Andy Warhol at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. He showed with Nigel Greenwood's gallery in London, and has been represented in many major exhibitions including the Tate Gallery, London, 'Young Contemporaries' (1967); Hayward Gallery, 'Six at the Hayward' (1969); The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 'Homers' (1973); Palazzo Reale, Milan, 'Arte Inglese Oggi ' (1976), Royal Academy of Art, London, 'British Painting 1952-1977' (1977), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 'British Art Now' (1980), Tate Gallery, Liverpool, 'Modern British Sculpture' (1988), Tate Gallery, London, 'New Aquisitions' (1991),  The Aldridge Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, 'Faith CT' (2000) and Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 'United Enemies: Sculpture in 1960s and 1970s Britain' (2011-2).

Public collections holding his work include the Guggenheim (NY), Tate Gallery (London), British Museum (London), Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), Museum Of Modern Art (NY), Henry Moore Foundation (Herts), National Gallery of Australia (Canberra), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh), Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool), Pallant House Gallery (Chichester) and the Montgomery Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

An adherent of minimalist and conceptual aesthetics, who credits Jasper Johns as his greatest influence, Milow continues to create works with a highly purified form of beauty. The man-made is the primary source for his work and he is recognised as 'a Romanticist of the Man Made'. He has lived in Amsterdam since 2002 and is soon to return to London.

To view works in the Tate Gallery Collection, click here: Keith Milow. To view works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection, click here: Keith Milow. 

Milow's work is included in the Deutsche Bank collection.