Thursday, January 29, 2026

Artist of the Day, January 29, 2026 : Peter Lowe is an English artist (#2472)

Peter Lowe (1938) is an English artist. Since boyhood he has been engaged in a search for fundamental principles in art, which has led him to geometric abstraction. He is best known for his series of relief constructions in perspex and wood, entitled Volume and Void. He has had 11 one-man shows since 1974, and has participated in more than 120 group exhibitions. His work has been seen widely in Europe and is in 18 public collections, including Tate Britain in London.

Lowe was born in Hackney, London. Inspired by J.W.Turner, he painted watercolours of Thames scenes. These gained him entry to Goldsmiths‘ College of Art in south London, where he was taught by Kenneth and Mary Martin among others. He recalls he made the move away from figurative art with a sense of excitement at embarking on a “great adventure”.

His work can be seen as a development of Cubist experiments with collage and rotational movement to create dynamic compositions. He says he realised that one could make such works using simple geometric shapes such as squares (or cubes), triangles and circles, without reference to “pipes and guitars”. His compositions often show linear progressions with a definite beginning and end, giving a sense of completeness.

He has made moveable sculptures, oil paintings, drawings and prints, sometimes using computers, as well as the reliefs for which he is best known. Some of his ideas have been translated into outdoor installations.

Lowe taught at Leeds College of Art from 1962 to 1964, where he worked with the noted teacher Harry Thubron. He also taught at the Barry Summer School in Wales in the 1960s as an assistant to Kenneth Martin. In 1965 Lowe became a lecturer at Goldsmiths and stayed until retiring from teaching in 2000.

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Peter Lowe, 1962
Peter Lowe
Transformable, c.1959-60s
Adjustable relief, c.1960
Relief, 1960

Hanging double-sided relief, 1963
Four root-2 rectangles, 1964
Relief, 1964
Relief 1965
Relief, 1966
Outdoor construction, 1966
Permutation of rows, 1968
Relief, 1968
Relief, 1968
Ten rows, 1969
Helix of nine slices of a cube, 1973
Hidden Circles, 1973
Volume and Void relief, 1973
Diagonal Grey Relief, 1974
Four equal volumes, 1974
Engraved line drawing, 1990
Engraving, 1990
Pen drawing, 1990
Relief, 1994
Eight pentagons, 2000
Relief, 2000
Ten acute triangles, 2000
Triangles in a hidden decagon, 2004
Hidden circles, 2006
Contra 2 relief, 2010-11
Five crosses, 2012
System of decagons, 2013
Transformable construction, 2013

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