90s

Making Rima's Wall
Tom Phillips creating Rima's Wall, 1991
The Winter's Tale design
The Winter's Tale design, 1997
Africa catalogue
Africa, 1995
Portrait of the Monty Pythons
Monty Python Portrait, 1993
Works And Texts
Works And Texts, 1992
Rima's Wall detail
Rima's Wall (detail), 1991
  • 1999
  • Hon Fellow Royal Society of Portrait Painters
  • Hon Fellow London Institute
  • Becomes trustee of British Museum to 2006
  • Composer Julian Anderson sets Humument texts to music
  • 1998
  • Translates libretto and designs production of Verdi’s Otello at ENO, directed by David Freeman
  • Six of Hearts released on Largo Records
  • Becomes trustee of National Portrait Gallery (to 2006)
  • Begins series for BBC Music Magazine Notes in the Post
  • Harrison Birtwistle sets the text of Song of Myself (wire sculpture) to music
  • 1997
  • Designs production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, directed by David Freeman for opening season at The Globe Theatre
  • Uses earth in his designs which starts a series of works painted with earth pigments
  • Aspects of Art (A Painter's Alphabet) is published along with Music in Art (Prestel), fifty essays on works inspired by music from the history of the visual arts, an expanded version of his long running series in BBC Music Magazine
  • Concurrent exhibitions : Sacred & Profane at South London Gallery and Drawing to a Conclusion at Dulwich Picture Gallery
  • Third edition of A Humument published
  • 1996
  • Marries Fiona Maddocks
  • Sets up a new studio in Oxford
  • 1995
  • Africa The Art of A Continent opens at Royal Academy of Arts : Tom Phillips becomes its Chairman Of Exhibitions
  • Writes Laudatio for Harrison Birtwistle: a verse encomium for the Siemens Stiftung in Munich
  • Africa Exhibition tours to Berlin Martin Gropius Bau and the Guggenheim Museum New York
  • 1993
  • Resumes life drawing, sharing a model with artist and neighbour Nicola Hicks
  • Becomes Josep Lluis Sert Practitioner in the Arts, Carpenter Center, Harvard where he makes a festschrift for Salman Rushdie, Merely Connect
  • Tom Phillips Retrospective is shown at Yale Centre for British Art
  • Begins a period of extensive travel as curator of Africa Show for the Royal Academy
  • One man show The Graphic Works tours the UK until 1999
  • 1992
  • Completes portrait of Salman Rushdie
  • Retrospective exhibition at Royal Academy
  • Works Texts to 1992 published
  • Exhibition at Victoria & Albert Museum
  • Concert including two new works, Six of Hearts and Mine is the Lifesong, with the Composers Ensemble at ICA
  • 1991
  • Completes portrait of Monty Pythons
  • Makes series of collage illustrations to Plato’s Symposium (Folio Society)
  • Begins large collage work Brent Cross and large pastel Rima’s Wall
  • Returns to musical composition with Six of Hearts for Mary Weigold Songbook, developed with John Woolrich at Dartington International Summer School
  • 1990
  • Receives Prix Italia for A TV DANTE
  • Begins The Peeler series
  • Publishes Where Are They Now: Class of 47
  • Tom Phillips’s mother dies