Tom Phillips

Tom Phillips was a British artist, printmaker, collagist, writer and composer whose work merged text, image and experiment in dynamic and often surprising ways. Born in London in 1937, he studied English at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, before training in art at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art and Camberwell School of Art under influences including Frank Auerbach.

Phillips’ career is distinguished by a sustained curiosity in transforming and reinvigorating source materials, whether literary, historical or pictorial. His best-known work, A Humument, began in the mid-1960s as a “treatment” of a discarded Victorian novel. Through collaging, painting, over-drawing and cutting, Phillips reworked successive editions of the text, creating new meaning and narrative through what remains and what is revealed.

His print Raphael Revisited (2011) exemplifies Phillips’ engagement with art history, interpretation and reinvention. This silkscreen print (edition of 75, paper size approx. 80.2 × 68 cm) responds to Renaissance models, inviting viewers to consider the ways in which form, proportion and legacy endure — and change — over time.

Over a long and influential career, Phillips held numerous solo and group exhibitions in the UK and internationally. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1984, and later served in key roles, including as Chairman of its Exhibitions Committee. His works are held in major collections, among them the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, Tate, Ashmolean Museum, and overseas in Australia and the United States.

Phillips’ practice also embraced portraiture, illustration, opera, book art, collage, and experimental printmaking. His interweaving of visual and verbal language, historical reference, and raw materiality make his work continually fresh, challenging, and richly layered. He died in November 2022, leaving behind a legacy of innovation and a body of work that continues to inspire.