Alfred Daniels Biography
Alfred Daniels was born in 1924 in London’s East End and in the late 1940,s studied at the Royal College of Art. During this period he toured Florence, Venice, Ravenna and Sienna and was deeply impressed by early Italian painting. After being awarded a first class honours degree at the Royal College of Art he where he completed postgraduate studies in mural painting. Soon afterwards he married his fellow student Margot Hamilton-Hill (today an established costume historian and theatre designer) and in 1952 his senior tutor, Ruskin Spear suggested that he submit designs for a competition for five large panels at the Hammersmith Town Hall. Age 28 he won the competition and completed the much-admired murals two years later. As a result of public and critical acclaim he went on to receive important mural commissions from Shell, Glaxo, Oxford University Press and British Rail amongst others. Throughout the following years Daniels enjoyed considerable success on the exhibition circuit. He was seen as an artist of promise and exhibited at the ICA, the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Gimpel Fils in London. Then as now, national painting prizes formed an important source of income for young artists and Daniels won a number of them, including the prestigious Knapping Prize, the Lord Mayor’s award and the Spirit of London Prize. In the fifties one notable act of sponsorship was a large prize fun set up by the Football Association for a ‘Football and Fine Arts Competition”. The vast number of nationwide entries was judged by Slade Professor William Coldstream, Sir Philip Hendy, Director of the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery director Sir John Rothenstein. The first prize was won jointly by Alfred Daniels and L.S. Lowry. Daniels has exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy since 1952 and in 1964 Sir Robin Darwin, Principal of the Royal College of Art invited him to join his teaching staff. Alfred Daniels has held the position of 1994 Keeper of the Royal Society of British Artists. He has published several books on drawing and painting and his work is in many private and public collections.