John Golding (art historian)
John Golding (Harold John Golding) (1929–2012) was a British artist, art historian and curator. He was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, England, and grew up mostly in Mexico, where he met influential artists who shaped his later work. He studied at Ridley College in Canada and the University of Toronto before moving to London in 1951 to study at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Golding became interested in Cubism after a 1953 exhibition and wrote his doctoral thesis on Cubism from 1907 to 1914. His book Cubism: A History and an Analysis (1959) argued that Cubism should be understood as a realist movement and that Georges Braque, not just Picasso, was a founder of Cubism.
He taught at the Courtauld Institute from 1959 to 1981, then moved to the Royal College of Art, where he taught until 1986 and then focused on painting. His art includes early dark, sculptural figures such as Torso (c. 1963); later, large-scale, abstract works focused on color and light, including Light from Troy (1986), Pulse (1991–92), and Arco Iris (1992). His painting was influenced by Renaissance art, Turner, Cézanne, Kandinsky and Rothko.
As a curator, Golding organized major shows at Tate and helped run several important exhibitions. He was made a CBE in 1992 and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1994.
Golding’s private life centered on his long partnership with the historian James Joll. He also persuaded Joll to shelter Anthony Blunt after Blunt’s spy revelations in 1979. Joll died in 1994, after which Golding’s health declined. He stopped painting around 2000 and became increasingly deaf and reclusive. He died in London in 2012 of ischaemic colitis.
Golding is remembered as one of the leading British art historians of his generation. His work helped present Cubism as a serious, realist art movement and highlighted the contributions of figures like Braque alongside Picasso.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:39 (CET).