Michael James Kidner (11 September 1917 – 2009) was a pioneer of Op art in the mid-1960s from Kettering, Northamptonshire, England. Michael Kidner was one of its earliest and most consistent exponents and it was in these overlapping fields of optical effect and systemic structure that he was to find the creative substance that was to sustain his whole career. A Constructivist by inclination his interest in mathematics, chaos and wave theories informed an art that is both rational and intuitive. Without losing his rigorous, intellectual approach, Kidner manages to make his work resonate emotionally.Throughout his life he retained an interest in unpredictable world events that provoked unplanned elements within his work but he somehow managed to intimate an underlying order through his use of form and colour.
Early life
Kidner was born in Kettering, the son of an industrialist and was one of six children. He was educated at Bedales School and in 1939 he went to Cambridge to read History and Anthropology, before studying Landscape Architecture at Ohio State University. He was staying with his older sister and her American husband in the US when war broke out in Europe. Unable to return home, he joined the Canadian army for five years. He was subsequently posted to England and after D-Day saw active service in France in the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. After demobilisation in 1946, he enrolled at Goldsmiths University to study for a National Diploma in Art and Design. However, he left after only three months as he was disenchanted with the course. From 1947–50, Kidner taught at Pitlochry Prep School in Perthshire and it was here that he started to paint as a hobby. In 1949 he met and married his wife Marion Frederick, an American actress. From 1951 to 1952 he became a theatre designer in Bromley and Barnstaple whilst continuing to paint. During a painting holiday in the south of France he met André Lhote who introduced him to Cubism and encouraged him to move to Paris and become a full-time painter. He travelled to Paris in 1953 where he attended Lhote's Atelier sporadically. After two years he returned to North Devon where his brother was practising as a GP. Here, Kidner painted abstract landscapes rather in the spirit of the St Ives School. Subsequently, he moved to St Ives for several months where he became acquainted with Trevor Bell, Roger Hilton, Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon and others in the group.
On moving to London in 1957, Kidner was introduced to The New American Painting exhibition at the Tate Gallery where he saw the Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Kidner later became influenced by Mark Rothko's colour field paintings. These inspired his After Image paintings, sculptures and reliefs, executed between 1957 and 1962. Kidner attended a 1959 course run by Victor Pasmore and Harry Thubron which alerted him to the Bauhaus derived ideas of colour. This led him towards a more objective use of colour.
Kidner's first solo exhibition was held at St Hilda's College, Oxford in 1959 where he showed his After Image paintings. However, it was not until 1965 that he became recognised as a pioneer of op art following the publicity surrounding the exhibition called The Responsive Eye organised by William Seitz at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Both Kidner and Bridget Riley's work were included.
Kidner taught at numerous art schools, including the Bath Academy of Art and the Chelsea College of Art. In 1978 he was invited by Stass Paraskos to be an artist-in-residence at the Cyprus College of Art arts centre in Paphos on the island of Cyprus.
Mature career
After Image 1959
Kidner said that "optics presents a challenge that was once offered by perspective". He was referring to the examination of visual perception in the science of linear perspective developed by Leon Battista Alberti and other Renaissance artists in the 15th century. Kidner was also interested in the work of Seurat and the Neo Impressionists who had investigated the connection between the retina and the brain regarding colour perception, as seen in their Pointillist paintings. Rothko's Colour Field abstractions led Kidner to see colour as "pure sensation". For example, in his Moving Green 1959 the colours seem to float in an atmospheric colour relief in front of the canvas.On gazing at the colour field, the eye moves from the green to the red area and a bright, red spot or after image produced by the retina appears in the field.
Later Kidner's After Image works became hard edged with flat uniform patterns, when he realised that optical activity producing shimmer is decreased by brushy paintwork and varied shapes.