About | chrishoggett

Chris was a towering figure in the Cheltenham art scene for many decades. Over the years he presented solo shows of his work and regularly contributed to the Artists Open Studios events as well as being the mainstay of the Cheltenham Group of Artists.

He was born at Columbia Place, Winchcombe Street. His Father was a musician and his mother a pianist and piano teacher. The family moved to Bristol where is father was a violinist at the Hippodrome. After his father lost his job – Chris said this was due to the advent of the talkies – they returned to Cheltenham and his father died when Chris was only six. After that, Chris lead a rather precarious family life, a defining element in his later artwork.

Throughout his young life he developed his extraordinary drawing ability, including a stretch of Rotols as a junior draughtsman. He was conscripted into the RAF for two or three years and when he came out, was accepted for a place at RCA and after gaining his diploma returned home to help his mother with his now severely disabled brother. He married Rose in 1959, they had five children and he started teaching at Whitefriars School where he designed exciting sets and costumes for their school plays.

In the 1960s, he formed a working friendship with David Gadsby of A & C Black and produced an extraordinary series of beautifully illustrated educational books. A prolonged period of struggle with depression lead, in a positive way, to his remarkable book ‘The Joker’ which catalogues his years of healing therapy through art and dreamwork, and his collaboration with Iron Mill College in Exeter which trains students in psychotherapy and drama therapy.

He leaves a legacy of work in many private collections and, notably, a piece of public sculpture for the Bradford Peace Library, set up by his brother. In any medium that he chose, be it painting, printing, ceramics or sculpture he invariably produced a piece of work of great sensitivity and power and will be greatly missed by all his students and admirers.