Obituary: Alan Gouk

Alan Gouk, who has died from cancer aged 84, was an ambitious abstract painter and an eloquent writer, committed to the continuing power of modernism. For many years, he taught sculpture at St Martin’s School of Art (now Central Saint Martins, part of the University of the Arts London). He was mainly influenced by American abstract expressionism, though he became conscious of the European roots of his art, with painters like Henri Matisse, Hans Hofmann, and Patrick Heron as his guiding stars.

Early in his career, a job as an exhibition officer with the British Council in the early 1960s provided Alan with a crucial introduction to the London art world. In 1967, he was recommended by the sculptors Anthony Caro, Phillip King, and Isaac Witkin to chair the sculpture forums at St Martin’s, where both students and professional artists would present and fiercely debate their work.

In 1970, Alan became the head of the advanced sculpture course at St Martin’s and in 1981, he was appointed senior lecturer in sculpture. Working with the head of sculpture, Tim Scott, Alan was involved in a controversial and short-lived rethinking of sculptural education centered on an intense study of the body. He retired from St Martin’s in 1990.

During the latter half of the 70s, Alan participated in artist-run studio exhibitions at Stockwell Depot in south London, strongholds of modernist abstraction as it became increasingly marginalized. His inclusion in a 1977 exhibition of four London-based Scottish painters at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh led to a public quarrel with the American critic Clement Greenberg, marking one of several public disagreements Alan had with dominant art-world figures.

Alan held his first solo exhibition in London in 1987, later showing his work with Flowers Gallery, Poussin Gallery, and most recently Felix & Spear. Our conversations at Poussin were an important part of my introduction to modern painting and central to my research on Stockwell Depot. I wrote three short essays on his paintings, the most recent one for Hampstead School of Art in 2022.

Born in Belfast, Alan was the son of Grace (née McElhinney), a nurse, and Ronald Gouk, a commercial traveler. In 1944, the family moved to Glasgow, where Alan attended Hutchesons’ grammar school. He started studies in architecture in Glasgow and London, and psychology and philosophy in Edinburgh, but did not complete them. Following his father’s early death in 1963, Alan committed himself to painting.

He was a two-time winner of the John Moores Painting Prize, in 1967 and 2002. In 1987, the Tate acquired his work “Cretan Premonition.” Other paintings by him are held by the Arts Council of Great Britain, the British Council, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Alan’s first marriage, to Margaret Emburey, ended in divorce in 1967. He met Patricia Guy in 1968, and they married in 1984, living in Stroud, London, and Ramsgate. Alan maintained his primary studio in Montrose, on the coast between Dundee and Aberdeen. He generally lived there alone for half the year in a flat that was once part of a house owned by his great-grandfather.

He is survived by Patricia, three children—Paul from his first marriage, and Alexis and Sholto from his second—and six grandchildren.