John Hoyland Hoyland Trust funds next generation of artists

October 11, 2018

Hoyland Trust funds next generation of artists

Beverley Heath-Hoyland & Azraa Motala 2018

The John Hoyland Trust launched The John Hoyland Scholarship in memory of John at the Chelsea College of Arts in 2014. The annual award was intended to encourage students from less privileged backgrounds to apply for an MA in Fine Art. The first student, Rhiannon Salisbury, took up her place in 2015 and since then two other students Joanna Stamford and Azraa Motala have received the scholarship.

The College’s Dean George Blacklock says that applications to MA courses at the Chelsea College of Arts have been noticeably fewer in recent years a fact he puts down to increased tuition fees putting applicants off even considering further education – particularly in the arts.

Hoyland was a former lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts and Central Saint Martins, and founded Chelsea’s first nationally recognised Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art in 1965. He was one of a cohort of brilliant young artist–teachers at Chelsea that included Pop artist Allen Jones, Howard Hodgkin and Patrick Caulfield.

‘John was passionate about the educational aspect of art and the creation of alternative educational routes for creative individuals,’ says his widow Beverley Heath-Hoyland. ‘The traditional system didn’t suit him, and he always wanted to ensure young artists were given every chance to flourish and weren’t excluded – through sheer lack of money or opportunity – from pursuing their vocation.

‘John himself had benefited from similar generosity. If it hadn’t been for a grant from the Yorkshire Education Authority he would never have had the funds to stay on at the Royal Academy Schools and pursue his ambition of becoming an artist.’

Born into a working-class family, he was passionate about art as an alternative to mainstream education. Rather than take the traditional grammar school route, he studied at Sheffield School of Art from 1951 to 1956 and then at the Royal Academy Schools from 1956 to 1960.