In Memoriam: Fred Cuming RA
By Norman Ackroyd RA
Published on 17 October 2022
Printmaker Norman Ackroyd RA celebrates the painter of coastal vistas who earned a place in the canon of British landscape art.
From the Autumn 2022 issue of RA Magazine, issued quarterly to Friends of the RA.
I first came to know Fred in 1988 when he proved one of the most friendly of the established Royal Academicians who welcomed me as a new recruit. But before I joined the RA, I had already long admired him as the most lyrical of painters.
Fred lived near Rye on the Sussex coast, which for many years has had a vibrant community of artists and writers. The nearby landscape and weather of Dungeness, Camber Sands, Winchelsea and the coastal wetlands were a constant source of inspiration for him across the seasons. His work was dependent on much en plein air observation and recording. Overall, he was a consummate draughtsman and also a brilliant colourist. He was particularly masterful with greys; in the wrong hands they can become dead, but in Fred’s they were infused with variations of light and colour – Queen of the Channel (1967) is a wonderful example, acquired by the Royal Academy Collection in the year it was painted.
Fred was a genial man, always optimistic and upbeat. His intense love of landscape was matched by an equally strong love of paint and its limitless potential. He has his place in the great British landscape canon that goes back to the Enlightenment, alongside artists such as David Cox,, John Sell Cotman, Cornelius Varley, John Crome and other painters who also thrived in small communities, many of them coastal, at St Ives, Staithes, the Stour Estuary and Norfolk.
When I first selected the Summer Exhibition alongside Fred, I soon realised he had a fantastic eye for this and other genres. He had an unerring ability to glean the very best from the thousands of submissions from all around the country. Our friendship blossomed further when we served together on the RA’s governing Council in the 1990s. Those were times of enormous change at the Academy, with the opening of the Sackler Wing, the major restoration of the Main Galleries and burgeoning numbers of Friends bringing a large loyal audience throughout the year. Fred had been elected as an Associate of the RA in 1969, before becoming a full Member in 1974, and he remained a valuable touchstone and link with an earlier and quieter time.
Royal Academicians at Council meetings tend to be compulsive doodlers. I have in my possession a memorandum from 1994 marked with drawings by Fred of myself and legendary painter Freddy Gore, demonstrating that Fred was also a skilled and sensitive portraitist. I also remember him making several exquisite etchings at my printmaking studio when he visited for a few days.
In later years we tended to have long telephone conversations, often about the Academy, which he dearly loved. He was a huge asset and contributor to the institution. We will miss him greatly.
Norman Ackroyd RA is a printmaker.
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