Painter, designer, collagist, relief artist and teacher who worked in a variety of materials, born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, but spent his youth in north Cornwall. He attended Bryanston School, where he was taught by Roger Hilton. For several years in the mid-1950s he studied illustration at Goldsmiths’ College School of Art and design at Central School of Arts and Crafts, 1951–4, having first solo show at Gallery One in 1957. This was followed in 1958 with a one-man show at ICA, followed by a string of shows at Gimpel Fils during 1960s. Also went on to exhibit at Marlborough Fine Art, New Art Centre and abroad. Irwin was involved in many important group shows, among them Situation, RBA Gallery, and the Paris Biennale, both 1960; The Art of Assemblage, Museum of Modern Art in New York, 1961; Situation, Arts Council, and British Painting in the Sixties, Whitechapel Art Gallery and tour, both 1963; XXXII Venice Biennale, from which Peggy Guggenheim bought work, 1964; Recent British Painting, Tate Gallery, 1967; Contemporary British Painting, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, America, 1974; Three Decades of Artists, RA, 1983; LG and RA Summer Exhibition, both 1987; and 20th Century British Painting, Redfern Gallery, 1993.