Judy Inglis

Figurative artist of austere and disquieting pictorial language

Judy Margaret Wain, artist and teacher: born Perranporth, Cornwall 19 April 1952; married 1973 Nigel Inglis (one daughter; marriage dissolved 1987); died Cheltenham, Gloucestershire 1 February 2003

To those who despair that England's tradition of strong figurative draughtsmanship has withered and died, the powerful drawings of Judy Inglis reassure that it lives and flourishes. In Inglis's pictures, technical ability is allied to singular personal imagery reflecting the directness, insight and wit of their creator.

Inglis wrote that her concerns were "essentially humanist":

I use the autobiographical as an emotive core and then incorporate myth, allegory, ritual and metaphor and literary association to enrich and extend the personal.

The large charcoal and oil on paper The First of May included in her show at Paton Gallery in 1993 is a good example, with its self-portrait and allusions to the annual Hobby Horse ritual in Padstow, Cornwall.

Inglis was born in that county at Perranporth in 1952, one of two daughters of a greengrocer, Donald Wain, and his wife Betty. Judy's ability to draw became evident at school and, with her parents' encouragement, she began a foundation course at Falmouth School of Art, moving to Exeter College of Art and Design.

She graduated in fine art with honours from Sheffield City Polytechnic in 1983, then was an Arts Council artist-in-residence on the Hurlfield Campus, before studying for a master's degree in painting at the Royal College of Art. Among her teachers there were John Golding, the expert on Cubism, Ken Kiff, Alan Miller and Jenny Durrant, but especially influential was another strong figurative draughtsman, Peter de Francia.

While at the Royal College, in 1985 Inglis was granted an exchange studentship to Athens Academy, in Greece. For several months she absorbed Greek sculpture and toured the islands. A fellowship in painting at Gloucestershire College of Art & Design followed, in 1987-88. By this time, Inglis was beginning to exhibit at notable venues. In 1984, she had been given a solo exhibition at the Mappin Art Gallery, in Sheffield. She was included in "Women Artists" at Sheffield's Graves Art Gallery in 1985. London showings began, at the Royal Over-Seas League Annual and at Birch and Conran, in 1987, and in 1988 at Sue Williams Gallery, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the Groucho Club.

Inglis continued steadily exhibiting while developing a teaching career. She enjoyed this, and the interchange with students that it involved. From 1987, she was a visiting lecturer at a string of colleges and polytechnics around England, in 1989 becoming a senior lecturer at Birmingham Polytechnic, where she stayed until her final illness.

Initially based in Stroud, Gloucestershire, she taught three days a week, leaving time for her own work in rented studios. A move to the old Co-op in nearby Nailsworth a few years ago provided a more convenient integral studio.

Inglis had to live with cancer for about 18 months. It meant that she was unable to see through a late, ambitious project to draw a series of dead birds. The energy was just not there, but this failed to erode her indomitable nature. "She was very outspoken, very honest," remembers her daughter, Tam. "She always said what she thought without filtering it."

Some of her finest pictures were shown in the exhibition she shared with Anita Taylor at MAC (Midlands Arts Centre), Birmingham, in 1997. Peter de Francia wrote:

Her pictorial language is austere. Intense blacks frequently form the arena in which

her carnival figures move in a choreography of stilted gestures and disquieting confrontations through which implied propositioning or questioning evokes no response . . . These are works possessing a disquieting resonance.

By then, Inglis had gathered some notable awards. She had won the Burston Award at the Royal Academy in 1987, to which a South West Arts Award, 1992, Rexel/Derwent Award for Drawing, 1993, and a prize in the Millfield Open, 1994, were added. Public galleries in Birmingham and Sheffield and a number of corporate collections acquired her works.

David Buckman