Charles Garrad
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Charles Garrad | |
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| Born | 1952 Somerset, England |
| Citizenship | British |
| Education | Marlborough College Stourbridge College of Art Cardiff College of Art Chelsea School of Art |
| Occupation | Artist, production designer, film director |
| Years active | 1970s–present |
| Known for | Large-scale architectural installations; film and television production design |
Notable work | Waiting for You (2018) |
Charles Garrad (born 1952) is a British artist, production designer, and film director. His work spans visual art, installation, film, and television. He is noted for pioneering large-scale architectural installations in the 1970s and 1980s, and for his contributions to film and television production design. His feature directorial debut, Waiting for You (2018),[1] starred Fanny Ardant and Colin Morgan.
Early life and education
Garrad was born in Somerset, England, in 1952. He was educated at Marlborough College (1965–1969), Stourbridge College of Art (1969–1970), Cardiff College of Art (1970–1973), and Chelsea School of Art (1973–1974).
As a student, he became interested in the atmospheric qualities of places and shifted from object-making to creating walk-in environmental installations evoking landscapes, alongside sculpture and performance.
Career
Early work and installations
From the outset, Garrad’s art focused on time, memory, and the significance of place and objects. He held the Sculpture Fellowship at Exeter College of Art (1974–1975) and taught at institutions including Exeter, Cardiff, Sheffield City Polytechnic, and Chelsea School of Art.
In 1975, following travels in the United States and Mexico, Garrad created A Room Remembered, a reconstruction of a Mexican hotel room. The work was exhibited in Six Times at the Serpentine Gallery in 1976[2] and established him as a pioneer of architectural installation.
In 1979 he was artist-in-residence at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, touring Australia with his installation Two Rooms. He later exhibited Cinema (1983) at the Serpentine Gallery, described by historian David Curtis as an early example of architectural installation anticipating Peter Greenaway’s work in the 1990s.
Other notable works include Monsoon (Ikon Gallery, 1986), which was reconstructed in 2014 for the gallery’s 50th anniversary exhibition.
During the 1980s, Garrad also worked with Shelagh Cluett at Chelsea School of Art, helping run the postgraduate sculpture programme. Students at the time included Helen Chadwick, Anish Kapoor, Gavin Turk, Laura Ford, and Mariele Neudecker.
Music video and television design
In the 1980s Garrad entered the emerging music video industry. He co-founded Popular Television Limited and designed more than 100 music videos for artists including Scott Walker, The Human League, Simply Red, Spandau Ballet, and The Style Council.
He also worked in television, designing the pilot for The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross (1987) and Crime Pays, directed by Christopher Monger.
Museum and exhibition design
Garrad contributed to the British Film Institute’s Museum of the Moving Image and collaborated on TV Times – 35 Years of Watching Television in Australia (1991)[2], an exhibition for the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney that later toured nationally.
Film and television
In 1992 Garrad produced and directed Time Passing, a six-part series of experimental short films about time for BBC2.
He went on to work extensively as a production designer on feature films and television dramas. Credits include:
- The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995)[3]
- The Serpent’s Kiss (1997)[4]
- Paranoid (2000)[5]
- Amongst Women (BBC, 1998)[6]
- Whiskey Echo (2005)[7]
- I Really Hate My Job (2007)[8]
For the Beckett on Film project (2001), he designed Waiting for Godot (dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg) and Act Without Words (dir. Karel Reisz), and directed That Time (starring Niall Buggy).[9] The series won the South Bank Show Award for Best TV Drama.
Directing
Garrad co-wrote and directed the feature film Waiting for You (2018)[10], starring Fanny Ardant and Colin Morgan.
Other activities
In 1989 Garrad assisted his father[11] in establishing an educational trust for Hawford Lodge, the school his parents founded in 1955. He later helped merge the school with King’s School Worcester.
He served on the board of the arts charity Artsadmin from 1994, becoming Chair and leading the acquisition and development of Toynbee Studios. He stepped down in 2021.
Following the death of Shelagh Cluett in 2007, Garrad became Chair of the Shelagh Cluett Trust.[12] The trust has established a public archive of her work at the Henry Moore Institute and placed works in the Tate Gallery and Arts Council Collection. It also awards grants to artists.
Personal life
Garrad is married to writer and stylist Mary Norden. The couple live in London.
Selected publications
- Six Times (Serpentine Gallery, 1976)[13]
- Serpentine Summer Show 3 (1983)[14]
- Monsoon (Ikon Gallery, 1986), essay by Waldemar Januszczak[15]
- Time Passing (BBC, 1990)
- A Dictionary of British Film and Video Artists (1996), edited by David Curtis
- The Dictionary of Artists in Britain Since 1945 (1998), David Buckman[16]
- A Directory of British Film and Video Artists (2007), David Curtis[17]
- As Exciting As We Can Make It (Ikon Gallery, 2014)[18]
- Catalogue: That Time (Bilbao, 2023)
References
- ↑ "Waiting for You (Film)".
- ↑ "TV Times: 35 years of watching television in Australia | Exhibitions | MCA Australia".
- ↑ "The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain (1995) - Full cast & crew - IMDb". IMDb.
- ↑ "Charles GARRAD".
- ↑ "Paranoid (2000) - Full cast & crew - IMDb". IMDb.
- ↑ "BBC Four - Amongst Women, Series 1, Episode 1".
- ↑ "Whiskey Echo (TV Movie 2005) - Full cast & crew - IMDb". IMDb.
- ↑ "I Really Hate My Job (2007) - Full cast & crew - IMDb". IMDb.
- ↑ "Beckett on Film".
- ↑ "Waiting for You". IMDb.
- ↑ "Obituary - Douglas Garrad (B1 1939-44)". 20 April 2021.
- ↑ "Shelagh Cluett Trust: Home".
- ↑ "Six Times: Performances and Installations Exploring Duration and Change".
- ↑ "Serpentine Gallery – Summer Shows 1983 | Summer Show 1 | John Roberts".
- ↑ "Plane Structure | Ikon Gallery: Monsoon".
- ↑ Buckman, David (1998). Dictionary of artists in Britain since 1945. Art Dictionaries Limited. ISBN 978-0-9532609-0-4.
- ↑ "A Directory of British Film & Video Artists".
- ↑ https://cms.ikon-gallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/As-Exciting-As-We-Can-Make-It-Ikon-in-the-1980s-2-July-31-August-2014.pdf |date=February 2026}}
External links
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