Keith Albarn

Keith Albarn (28 January 1939 – 23 July 2024) was an English artist. He was the father of musician Damon Albarn and artist Jessica Albarn. his father was an architect who trained at the School of Architecture at Leicester College of Arts and Technology; his mother had trained as an art teacher there. His parents married on Thursday 23 December 1937 at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Knighton, Leicester.

His 27-year-old father was registered as a conscientious objector in July 1940, and had left the Church of England to join the Society of Friends (Quakers). Edward Albarn set up as an architect in Lincoln with Ian Caldwell, as Davis Caldwell and Albarn. Edward Albarn lived on Evington Road in Leicester in the 1920s, and had a brother Roy Albarn (1 January 1911 – August 1994), a preacher with the Baptist, Congregational and City Mission churches, who also registered as a conscientious objector in Liverpool in September 1940.

From Monday 27 September 1965, his father gave a series of twenty-four weekly adult education talks on church architecture, in conjunction with the University of Nottingham, at a grammar school in Grantham, Lincolnshire; the course cost 24 shillings and six pence. In the late 1960s, his father Edward lived at The Hall, at Holton cum Beckering.

His grandfather was also called Edward Albarn (23 June 1881 – 1972), who had the furniture business Albarn and Axworthy on Belvoir Street in Leicester; his grandfather had tried to commit suicide, by slashing his neck at St Pancras railway station on Sunday 10 April 1927. His grandfather survived, and recuperated at the Royal Free Hospital in London. His grandfather had moved to Coventry by the mid-1930s.

Early life Albarn attended West Bridgford Grammar School. He was a conscientious objector to post-World War National Service, following his father, Edward Albarn, who had been a conscientious objector in World War II. In March 1957 he played the lead role in Othello, and again opposite Jill Cook who played Desdemona; the Nottingham Guardian Journal described his acting as convincing and moving, with Jill Cook being described as tender. The play had three main performances. Albarn was raised at Ruddington; his brother was born on 12 April 1944 at Nottingham Women's Hospital. (a former hospital next to the NTU Wetherspoons establishment).

Albarn studied architecture at Nottingham School of Art, where he met fellow student Hazel Dring, whom he married They married on Saturday 23 May 1936 at St John's church, Stainton by Langworth John George Dring, a potato merchant, died on 3 March 1947, at 29 Rookwood Road in Nottingham. He had married in May 1901.

On Monday 28 October 1996, 88-year-old Vernon Dring, when driving a Saab, had a head-on collision with a Land Rover on the B1202 near Lissington, and was flown to Lincoln County Hospital, where he died on 29 October 1996.

Career Throughout the 1960s, Albarn worked freelance to finance environmental art projects, including "Interplay" at the ICA. Also at this time, a gallery was set up at 26 Kingly Street, which was run by a group of artists including Albarn and his wife, Hazel, who also exhibited her work there.

Pattern and belief

In 2013, The Minories Galleries presented a body of work that was developed from over forty years of research; a progression of patterns developed from a simple number game. It was on display from 18 May to 13 July 2013. For over forty years Keith Albarn had been researching number systems and patterns, and their relationship to belief systems and creativity. Taking a simple number game as a starting point he developed an infinite number of new patterns that connect across various dimensions allowing endless possibilities for outcomes. Some of these possibilities were displayed at The Minories Galleries through a patterned environment, prints, sculptural forms, artist's games and sound-works. As part of the exhibition a library and collection of material further explained this area of research.