Born 19th September, 1943
Elected ARE 1971
Elected RE Fellow 1973
Michael sadly passed away 1st April 2026
Mike Chaplin RWS RE FRSA trained at Watford School of Art and later undertook postgraduate studies in printmaking at Brighton School of Art. He was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers at the age of 28 and would go on to serve as the Honorary Secretary and Vice President of the RE, under the presidency of Harry Ecclestone OBE PPRE (1923–2010). He later became a Full Member of the Royal Watercolour Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Mike would go on to receive the Turner Award in 2011, which he helped to instigate in cooperation with the Turner family.
Mike held a love of teaching which extended beyond the many courses which he ran both at home & abroad. He worked frequently with Tate Britain supplying handling sheets for their Girtin exhibition, voice notes for both the ‘Hockney on Turner' and ‘Monet, Turner & Whistler' exhibitions. He also produced a series of short films on J M W Turner's techniques when he was given the unique opportunity of using pigments left in Turner's studio on his death. Mike was also the author of books on both watercolour and printmaking, as well as appearing on television for a number of art-related programmes.
Mike's work, both in painting and printmaking, is included in many public and private collections worldwide, including those of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.