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Douglas Portway was born in
Johannesburg and began
painting and exhibiting in his native South
Africa. After his first solo exhibition in
1945 his reputation grew to such an extent that he became the first South
African to be awarded a travel grant from the Institute of International
Education, which took him to the USA in 1952. In 1956 he was
chosen to take part in the Venice Biennale and the following year he left South
Africa for good and travelled to Europe, finally
settling in Ibiza in 1959 and
worked there for 7 years. During this period he had solo exhibitions at the Drian Gallery in London, as well as
in Paris, Ibiza and South
Africa.
In
1967 Portway moves to St. Ives in Cornwall and begins
an association with the Marjorie Parr Gallery there and in London. From 1972
he also is able to buy a property in the Dordogne and spends
part of the year there and the rest in St. Ives before selling up in Cornwall during the
1980s.
His
work is to be found in the collections of the Tate Gallery, V&A Museum and the
Scottish Gallery of Modern Art along with many other galleries in this
country, Europe and South
Africa.
Five
items of Portway’s work were included in the
Harlequin Gallery “Art in Britain 1945 to 1985” exhibition
that took place in 2005.
Currently the gallery does not have any of Douglas Portway’s
work available.
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