Herbert Kitchen is a painter and illustrator now based in West Sussex. Born in Liverpool in 1940, he has mostly lived and worked in London.

Bert has received acclaim for his illustration work, but painting has remained largely a private endeavour. When exhibiting back in the early 1960s, however, the works caught the eye of artist and collector Roland Penrose, who became a long-time mentor, supporter and friend to Bert. There is a surrealist bent to Bert’s approach, though his style resists easy classification. Although Bert’s finished pieces appear meticulously drafted – implying visions of organic and otherworldly forms – they in fact begin with a scattering of expressionistic marks, which he then works into over periods of up to two to three months. Even in their most refined state, these paintings give rise to the startling feeling that their forms are in flux, that they are growing, that skins are being shed or, conversely, slowly swallowing the matter beneath.

Bert has been producing his enigmatic paintings almost religiously for over 60 years but has never relied on them for income. After graduating from the Central School of Art, Bert worked there as a part-time lecturer of drawing and design for four years, and then for nearly 30 years at the Sir John Cass College, where his department relocated to from the Central. Following this, he worked as an illustrator, collaborating on a column for Private Eye, and also authoring and illustrating several successful children’s books. 

Bert is now entering a period of consolidation in which he hopes to share his extensive and extraordinary body of work with a wider audience. It is a period of change and renewal in several ways as he and Muriel–whom Bert married while he was at art school–recently moved to the Sussex coast to be closer to family.