Terry Ilott (1945 to 2019)

Terry was born and educated at Gloucester and studied Art at Cheltenham and The Royal College of Art.

He said “The 1960’s, since much maligned by critics, was genuinely an incredible period of cultural creativity, optimism and excitement. To be a student in a British Art School at this time was, for me – and for many others – a liberating and life-changing experience for which I count myself extremely lucky”.

Terry became a full-time lecturer at Newport College of Art in the early 1970’s where he gave his own students that same experience.
He was an extremely gifted artist and a very popular tutor and those of us who were fortunate enough to be his students have carried his influence with us to this day.

One of his favourite quotations was by Einstein and it gives a great insight into Terry’s own work, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science”.

Terry said “ This sense of mystery, together with the more elusive quality of poetry, is nearly always present in the work I most admire, such as the paintings of Samuel Palmer, Vermeer and Caspar David Friedrich, the songs of Bob Dylan and films of Stanley Kubrick. This sense of mystery is also connected to the idea of ‘the sublime’ as understood by The Romantic Artists who were inspired by a kind of wonder and awe in the face of Nature”.

My sincere thanks to Lesley Ilott for her continued interest and support of this exhibition project and for kindly allowing us to show Terry’s work amongst his students and former colleagues.

Neil Carroll
Exhibition Curator

Click here to read Terry’s biography page.