Painter, draughtsman and sculptor, born in Leeds, Yorkshire, whose lifetime’s work, reflecting and developing from many aspects of European Modernism, emerged following a fire at his home in Chapel Allerton, in the city, in 1999. Until then, only his close family knew of Woodrow’s output. Within a few years it was getting national press publicity, Woodrow being hailed as a lost modern master. His parents were of Polish background, marrying in Boston, America. On moving to Leeds, Joash’s father worked as a Hebrew scholar and bookseller before settling into the textile trade. Several of the eight sons and two daughters became distinguished academics, Julius a nuclear scientist at Harwell, Joseph a professor of medicine in Liverpool. Joash attended Leeds College of Art; served in the Army as a cartographer, 1945–8; then between 1950–3 studied drawing and painting at the Royal College of Art, fellow-students and friends including Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake and the novelist Len Deighton.
Read more
Woodrow received fine testimonials from his lecturers, Ruskin Spear, Carel Weight, Robert Buhler and Rodrigo Moynihan. After a nervous breakdown while living in London, Woodrow returned home to live with his mother and brother, Israel. With their support he worked for nearly 50 years in isolation, reclusive and uninterested in exhibiting. Following the death of his mother in 1962 and Israel in 1978, Woodrow became increasingly prolific, using furniture including his piano, other household objects, roof tiles, window frames, coal and potato sacks and cornflake packets to create art. His vast collection of art books surrounded him as he worked. After the fire, some 700 paintings and several thousand drawings were found in tightly stacked piles. A long programme of conservation began, overseen by Andrew Stewart of 108 Contemporary Fine Art, Harrogate, which held a series of successful exhibitions from 2002. Leeds City Art Gallery showed a series of later local landscapes in 2004, and in 2005 there was a substantial exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery as well as important ones at the Ben Uri Gallery and Gulbenkian Galleries at the Royal College of Art. Works on paper retrospectives were held at Hull University Art Gallery, 2006, and Liverpool University Art Gallery in 2007. By then, The Joash Woodrow Foundation had been established. The mentally frail Woodrow, no longer painting, latterly lived in sheltered accommodation in Manchester. Leeds and Manchester Art Galleries hold Woodrow’s work.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
