Ged Quinn

Who is Ged Quinn?

Ged Quinn is an English artist and musician. He studied at the Ruskin in Oxford, the Slade School of Art in London, the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.

He specialises in allegorical paintings that include contemporary images in idyllic scenes based on classical paintings such as the pastoral works of Claude Lorrain and Caspar David Friedrich.

For example, his "Cross in the Wilderness" introduces a miniature Spandau Prison, the iconic jail for Nazi war criminals, into a forest scene based on "Der Chasseur im Walde" by Friedrich, a leading painter in German Romanticism. Another painting, "Darkening of the Green", places the controversial HM Prison Maze into a rural landscape.

Quinn has exhibited internationally in many shows including 'Language of the Wall' at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ljubliania, Slovenia, 'The Real Ideal' at the Millennium Galleries in Sheffield and 'Showcase' at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh. He was represented by Wilkinson Gallery and is now represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery in London.

Quinn was also the keyboard player in the Liverpool group The Wild Swans. He was one of the three original core members, along with Paul Simpson and Jeremy Kelly, and played on their Zoo Records 12" single "The Revolutionary Spirit"/"God Forbid", released in 1982. He was also involved when the group reformed in 1986, although he left shortly afterwards to pursue his art career. A retrospective 2 CD collection called Incandescent with Quinn appearing on all tracks was released in 2003 by Renascent Records. However, Quinn did not appear on either of the band's two albums for Sire Records later in the 1980s.