Fred Cuming was born in London 1930 and studied at Sidcup School of Art from 1945 - 1949. After completing his National Service he went on to study at the Royal College of Art from 1951 - 1955. He was awarded an Abbey Minor Scholarship to The British School of Rome, Italy in 1955. Cuming was elected a Royal Academician in 1974 (ARA 1969). He is a Member of the New English Art Club and an Associate of the Royal College of Art.
Among Cuming’s many awards are the Grand Prix Fine Art (1977), the Royal Academy’s House and Garden Award and the Sir Brinsley Ford Prize (New English Art Club, 1986). He was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts at Kent University in 2004 and was an Artist in Residence at Christchurch Canterbury between 2016 - 2017.
Cuming’s first solo show was held at the Thackeray Gallery in 1978 and he has continued to exhibit regularly in the UK, Ireland, Europe and the United States. His work has been included in many group exhibitions since 1953. In 2001 he was given the honour of being the featured artist in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition and had an entire gallery within the show dedicated to his work. His work is held in countless private and public collections around the world.
Cuming has devoted his life to expressing the fleeting impressions of his surroundings, often painting the South Coast of England around Hastings, Camber and Rye. His work is about responses to the moods and atmospheres generated by landscape, still life or interior. He is interested in the developments of 20th century painting, in abstraction, that has been present in all movements and in new ideas and art forms. He has been inspired by masters of colour such as J.M.W. Turner, Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse and Paul Nash. Cuming’s major subject is how to use colour and light in his painting to represent the natural world.