Tai Shan Schierenberg

Tai-Shan Schierenberg was born in England in 1962, the eldest of three sons to a very young Chinese mother and a German painter. As a child he spent the first years of his life with his grandparents in Malaysia but was eventually returned to his London-based parents for the beginning of primary school.

 

Being taken on frequent visits to the London Museums or art galleries made him familiar with painting of all realms and ages, while drawing soon became the child's favourite activity. After extensive travels to the places of Antiquity in Greece and Asia Minor, the family settled in the Black Forest and, in pursuit of a more ecologically centered life, did some subsistence farming, while the boy, by now eleven years old, started his secondary education under the auspices of a Jesuit run grammar school nearby. In his mid-teens the first cautious steps towards oil painting were undertaken.

 

At the age of seventeen and with his secondary education completed, he left home, reconnoitred Frankfurt and Amsterdam, drifted over to Paris, where he predominantly spent his time drawing from life at the venerable Académie de la Grande Chaumière.

 

Schierenberg eventually returned to London, where he has remained ever since. He applied to and was accepted by St. Martin's and in due course, Slade School of Art for postgraduate studies, which he finished in 1987.[1]

 

In 1989 he won joint first prize in the National Portrait Gallery's John Player Portrait Award, and as part of the prize, was commissioned to paint the portrait of playwright John Mortimer for the Gallery's collection. The National Portrait Gallery also holds his portraits of Lord Carrington from 1994, Lord Sainsbury 2002 and most recently Seamus Heaney from 2004. He has also executed the commission for a double portrait of the Royal Couple. His paintings can be seen at Flowers East in Hackney.

 

Tai Shan Schierenberg is Head of Painting at The Art Academy in London.

 

 

Collections include:

 

National Portrait Gallery, London

Tate Gallery

Cambridge University

Oxford University

The Royal Society

Queen's College Belfast

B.B.C

Chatsworth House

Ernst & Young

Aspen Insurance

 

 

 

Exhibitions

2006 “Back to the Figure – Contemporary Painting”, Kunsthalle der Hypokulturstifitung, Munich

2006 Myths, Flowers Central, London

2005 The Human Figure, Flowers East, London

2005 Out of Time, Flowers East, London

2005 Naughton Gallery, Queen’s University, Belfast

2004 Scenes from Life, Flowers Central, London

2004 Contemporary Nudes, Flowers East, London

2004 Flowers West at Keller Green, Los Angeles, USA

2004 Small is Beautiful XXII: Here and Now, Flowers Central, London

2004 Flowers Graphics, London

2004  Scenes from Life, Flowers Central, London

2003 Flowers, New York, USA

2002 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London

2002 British Figurative Painting, Beadleston Gallery, New York, USA

2002 Flowers West, Santa Monica, USA

2001 Flowers Central, London

2001 Flowers Graphics, London

2001 5 Painters, Flowers East at London Fields, London

2001 12 British Figurative Painters, Flowers West, Santa Monica, California

2000 Flowers East, London

2000 Angela Flowers Gallery 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Flowers East at London Fields, London

1999 Contemporary British Landscape, Flowers East, London

1999 Flowers East at London Fields, London

1999 Monotypes, Flowers Graphics, London

1998 Flowers West, Santa Monica, USA

1997 Flowers East, London

1997 British Figurative Art, Part One: Painting, Flowers East, London

1997 Oil on Canvas: Portraiture, BBC2, 15 September 7.30pm

1996 Naked, Flowers East at London Fields, London

1996 Flowers East, London

1994 Flowers East, London

1994 'Inner Visions', Flowers East, London

1993 The Portrait Now, National Portrait Gallery, London

1993 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

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