In celebration of John Croft turning 100 this January, we are exhibitiing a select collection of his paintings across five decades of his painting career. His work has been exhibitied in Bath, Isle of Wight, and London, including a survey exhibition of abstract artists at Camden Arts Centre, 1967.
John Croft CBE was born in Hampstead in 1923. In 1942 whilst reading History at Oxford University, he was invited to work for the British Intelligence Service, which took him to work at Bletchley Park for six months, intercepting and deciphering communications from German High Command. After the war, following a number of roles in the Civil Service, John became Head of the Home Office Research Unit 1972-83, becoming CBE in 1982.
John Croft is an accomplished artist. Despite no formal art training he produced "non-figurative, Minimalist, work derived from landscape". He participated in group shows at Piccadilly and John Whibley Galleries, at Camden Arts Centre in its survey of abstract artists in 1967, which included Basil Beattie RA and Jennifer Durrant RA., Bear Lane Gallery in Oxford in 1968, Covent Garden Gallery, 1973, Artspace Gallery in Isle of Man, 1990, and Newport Art Gallery, Isle of Wight, 1993. In 1970 he had a solo exhibition at University of Sussex's Gardner and a year later at Warwick University.
Paintings by John Croft are held in the collections of London Borough of Camden and London School of Economics. John Croft has been represented by David Simon Contemporary since 2016.
John Croft's work can be found in the collections of Oxford University, Cambridge University, London School of Economics, Manx Museum Isle of Man, Reform Club London and London Borough of Camden.
He is included in Who's Who in Art and continues to paint in his studio in Bath.
