Biography

Michael was born in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, in 1944, but grew up in South West London. He attended Latymer Upper School, Hammersmith, leaving in 1961. Subsequent jobs included: shop assistant, office worker, and petrol pump attendant while taking evening classes at Putney School of Art. 1962, he was accepted at Chelsea Art School for a Dip AD in painting. His tutors included Patrick Caulfield (1) and Ken Kiff (2). 1965, he exhibited in The Young Contemporaries Annual Exhibition and the subsequent Arts Councils Travelling Exhibition.

On leaving Chelsea in 1966, he taught in a comprehensive school, leaving after a year to teach part-time at Putney School of Art until 1990. Also, occasional Teaching at Chelsea Art School, Sir John Cass School of Art and Morley College, London.

Continuing with his own work, he exhibited occaisionally as a non-member with the London Group and other group shows including the Whitechapel Open and at Camden Arts Centre. At this period, Michael was given two solo shows at the Jon Holt Gallery, London. In 1990, he became Head of Putney School of Art, continuing in the position until taking early retirement in 1996. In 1990, with his wife, the artist Julia Vezza, he began regular visits to Frinton in North East Essex and also frequent visits to Ronda in Southern Spain where they bought a small country cottage.

After retirement he continued with part-time teaching at Putney and Central Saint Martin’s while spending several months each year painting in Spain. Ronda had always attracted foreign artists since David Bomberg (3) had discovered it in the 1930s and Fletcher became a founder member in 2000 of La Fuente (The Spring) a group of international artists working in Andalusia, who organised several exhibitions in Ronda. In 1997 he began regularly showing at the Attendi Gallery, London, with a solo show there in 2002. From 2005 to 2009, Michael worked on a series of paintings, The Fourteen Stations of The Cross, exhibited in 2017 over Easter at The Oasis Gallery, Frinton, then moving on to St Mary’s Church, Wivenhoe, 2018 and St Mary’s Church, Bayswater. In 2009, Michael and Julia moved to Wivenhoe, Essex, both becoming members of Colchester Art Society in 2010. Michael also served on the General Committee and Selection Committee. He also organised the making of several video portraits of the Art Society Group shows including: Walton on The Naze Tower, The Sentinel Gallery, Wivenhoe, Flatford Mill, Suffolk and The Essex Open at the Beecroft Gallery, Southend. Michael held an exhibition with Julia Vezza at the Wivenhoe gallery 2011, and with Ian Hay at the Minories in 2018.

Statement

“This, the first version of Fire on The Beach, was painted in 2015, a second larger version followed in 2017/2018. The image was suggested by seeing the charred remains of a small wooden boat on a beach in Norfolk some months before. Its what I see as one of my little landscape dramas, there could be a poignant story there, maybe not, we will never know. I normally always need some subject matter to start from no matter how vague.

I chose a bright sunny day as a backdrop ,a dark day seemed a little too obvious. I liked the contrast between the warm dry sand in the foreground and the damp grey sand beyond the breakwater and the opportunity of using stronger colours on the wooden piles of the breakwater. The blue strip at the top of the painting both hopefully holds the composition down from the top and suggests a strip of sky reflected on the sea.

I used no drawings or photographs to work from, a lot of the decisions were memory, luck and intuition.”

(1) Patrick Caulfield CBE, RA 1936-2005) English painter and printmaker well known for his vibrant, pared-down imagery, often of domestic or every-day scenes.

(2) Ken Kiff RA (1935-2001) English figurative painter, much admired for his colourful, visionary style.

(3) David Bomberg (1890-1957) was a British modernist painter known for his powerful Vorticist, geometric designs. Travelled widely, especially around the Mediteranean and lived for some time in Ronda, Spain. Influential regarding later artists such as Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff.