Hugh Dunford Wood CV
Hugh Dunford Wood has worked as an artist designer since his student days in the 1970s at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. He paints landscapes and portraits; he also designs wallpapers and murals. He has worked with The National Trust, Paul Smith & Yoshi Yamamoto, and many other national & international designers.
His work is solidly based on observing the natural world combined with a practical sense of design. This brings integrity to all he makes. He lives on a hillside on the outskirts of Bridport, and opens for Dorset Art Weeks.
Hugh has always been keen to demystify and disseminate the role of the arts, co-founding the first Open Studio Weeks in Britain in 1983, in Oxfordshire, and the Lyme Regis ArtsFest in 2003, each celebrating the local art scene and promoting links between the arts and the community. He also curated the pop-up National Gallery of Lyme Regis for Dorset Art Weeks for 10 years.
He has worked as the artist in residence with the Royal Shakespeare Company, also with the Globe Theatre in London and at the Museum of Bermuda Art for their 400th Anniversary. He is a member of The Devon Guild of Craftsmen, the Chelsea Arts Club, Artist Member of the Royal Western Academy. His work is in the permanent collections of The Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Council, The Museum of Bermuda Art, The Bodleian Library and various Oxford Colleges and international banks.
In March 2022, Hugh was chosen by The Prince of Wales, President of Heritage Crafts to receive an enormous medal for his work as an endangered craftsman, keeping alive the art of designing and printing wallpaper by hand, the inspiration for which is from the natural world.
He has exhibited work throughout Britain, and in Japan, Europe, the USA, Brazil and Bermuda. Recent shows include The Munich Handwerkskammer Exhibition, the Ruthin Centre for the Applied Arts, Bristol’s RWA and The Tremenheere Gallery in Cornwall. At present Hugh is working as artist-in-residence to the Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens.