Michael Ayrton

Michael Ayrton (20 February 1921 – 16 November 1975) was a British painter, printmaker, sculptor, critic, broadcaster and novelist. His sculptures, illustrations, poems and stories often focused on the subjects of flight, myths, mirrors and mazes.

He was also a stage and costume designer, working with John Minton on the 1942 John Gielgud production of Macbeth at the age of nineteen, and a book designer and illustrator for Wyndham Lewis's The Human Age trilogy. An exhibition, Word and Image (National Book League, 1971), explored Lewis's and Ayrton's literary and artistic connections. He also collaborated with Constant Lambert and William Golding.

Life and career

Ayrton was born Michael Ayrton Gould,

In the 1940s, Ayrton participated in the BBC's radio programme The Brains Trust. He married the novelist and cookery writer Elisabeth Balchin in 1942 following her divorce from Nigel Balchin a year earlier.

Beginning in 1961, Michael Ayrton wrote and created many works associated with the myths of the Minotaur and Daedalus, the legendary inventor and maze builder, including bronze sculptures and the pseudo-autobiographical novel The Maze Maker (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967). In 1969, he designed the Arkville Maze. He also wrote and illustrated a satirical novel, Tittivulus or The Verbiage Collector (Max Reinhardt, 1953; designed by Will Carter), an account of the career of a minor devil whose original remit was to collect slovenly performances of the Divine Office in monasteries, but who develops, as the centuries pass, into a collector of all kinds of verbiage, and finally, in the modern age, mounts a fascistic revolution in Hell. Ayrton was also the author of several non-fiction works on fine art, including Aspects of British Art (Collins, 1947).

Ayrton died in 1975, survived by his wife. In 1977, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery organised a retrospective exhibition of his work.

His work is included in several collections including the Tate Gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery, London, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Fry Art Gallery, Essex. Ayrton's work was also featured at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, in an exhibition running from September to October 1955.

In 2021, the artist's centenary year, there were exhibitions of his work (Celebrating Michael Ayrton at The Lightbox Gallery, Woking, UK; A Singular Obsession: A Centenary Celebration of the work of Michael Ayrton, Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden, UK; Michael Ayrton's Minotaur Suite, Kruizenga Art Museum, Michigan, USA), and an illustrated monograph, Michael Ayrton: Ideas Images Reflections.

Selected writings 1945: Poems of Death. Verses chosen by Phoebe Pool, Lithographs by Michael Ayrton. London: Frederick Muller Ltd. 1947: Aspects of British Art. London: Collins 1953: Tittivulus or The Verbiage Collector. London: Max Reinhardt 1957: Golden Sections. London: Methuen 1961: The Aeschylus Oresteia. New York: The Heritage Press. Translated from the Greek by E.D.A. Morshead, with a foreword by Rex Warner, illustrated by Michael Ayrton. 1962: The Testament of Daedalus. London: Methuen. With a foreword by Rex Warner; reprinted, London: Robin Clark, 1991. 1967: The Maze Maker: a novel. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1969: Berlioz: A singular obsession. London: BBC Publications 1969: Giovanni Pisano: Sculptor. London: Thames & Hudson 1970: The Minotaur. London: Genevieve Restaurants 1971: The Rudiments of Paradise: Various essays on various arts. London: Secker & Warburg 1972: Fabrications. London: Secker & Warburg / New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1973