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Born in Zimbabwe
Desmond Rochfort was brought up and educated in the United
Kingdom; A graduate of both the Royal Academy of Art,
as well as the Royal College of Art in London, he was
trained initially as a painter at the Byam Shaw School
of Art in London and then at the Royal Academy of Art
in London, from where he graduated in 1974 with a Masters
in Fine Art. During the 1970's and 1980's he practiced
as a mural painter, and became one of Britain's leading
public mural artists, and executed a number of the most
important and well known mural commissions painted in
Britain during that period. In
1986 he received his Ph.D. from the Royal College of
Art in London for his pioneering research, conducted
in Mexico and the United States, on the 20th century
history of the Mexican Mural painting movement, and
in particular for his work on the Mexican muralist David
Alfaro Siqueiros.
Acknowledged as one of the leading
international scholars outside of Mexico on the History
of Mexican Mural Painting Desmond Rochfort has travelled
and conducted research throughout Mexico and the United
States for the last 25 years on the History of the Mexican
mural movement. His articles and books have been published
in Europe, as well as the United States, Mexico and
Australia. Translated into Spanish and Italian, his
most recent book, Mexican
Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros, is
now in its 5th printing and is widely used as required
reading and as a text book for Latin American cultural
studies courses in Universities in the United States.
And, in Mexico itself it is currently the best selling
book on the history of the country's mural painting
movement. In September 2003 the Chinese edition of the
book will be published by the Tsingua University Press
in Beijing
While living in the United Kingdom,
Dr. Rochfort curated, or was principle advisor and consultant
to several major international exhibitions of Mexican
Art held in the United Kingdom, including the first
retrospective exhibition in Britain, held at the Museum
of Modern Art in Oxford of the Mexican muralist Jose
Clemente Orozco in 1981, the landmark retrospective
of Diego Rivera held at the Haywood Gallery in London
1987, and most recently the exhibition of the work of
Siqueiros held at the Whitechapel Gallery in London
in 1997. He was also the principle advisor and consultant
for the 1987 BBC Arena series TV documentary on the
life and work of Diego Rivera. And most recently he
was consultant and advisor to the exhibition Viva Mexico!
Featuring the work of Diego Rivera held at the Glenbow
Museum in Calgary Alberta Canada
Other recent notable exhibitions which
he has curated and directed, include Lines of Site:
Ideas Forms and Materialities an exhibition of printmaking
from the graduate printmaking program of the Department
of Art and Design at the University of Alberta, which
was sponsored by Canadian Airlines and exhibited in
London and Tokyo in 1998.
During his time in Britain Desmond
Rochfort taught at the Chelsea School of Art in London
where he became the Director of the school's graduate
program in Public Art and Design. In 1990 he moved to
Canada to take up the position of Professor and Chairman
of the Department of Art and Design at the University
of Alberta. While at the University of Alberta he pioneered
and introduced in collaboration with the faculties of
engineering, science and business and Arts a design
degree that today is still unique in North America in
that it combines throughout the four-year length of
the design degree, alternative "pathways"
of intensive study for Design students in disciplines
now intimately connected to Design practice, such as
Computing Science, Engineering, Business and Marketing
and the social sciences of Cognitive Psychology, Sociology
and Anthropology.
Dr. Rochfort served as President of
the Alberta College of Art & Design from 1999 to
2003.
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