Dublin born painter and printmaker of townscapes, landscapes, figures, portraits and interiors and theatrical designer. He attended Highgate School where he was taught by Welsh painter Kyffin Williams. After studying Russian at University and serving in the Royal Navy, he attended the Slade School 1958-62, where he was taught by Keith Vaughan, and took a variety of jobs including Russian interpreter for the British Council and art broadcaster for the BBC Russian Service. In 1962 he travelled to Italy and Greece and continued to travel extensively, visiting America in 1965 with David Hockney and Colin Self. He subsequently travelled to North Africa, India, Nepal China, Egypt and Greece.
He exhibited at the Redfern Gallery beginning in 1963 and continued to do so until his demise. In the 1960's Procktor produced set and costume designs for the theatre and ballet including Twelfth Night, 1968, and Total Eclipse, 1969, for the Royal Court Theatre. He also taught at Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts, Maidstone College of Art and from 1965-72 at the RCA.
In 1983 he was commissioned by the IWM to paint the army in Belize and in 1985 he was asked by the British Council to record the Queen's visit to Portugal. Despite his homosexual leanings, in 1973 Procktor married a widowed neighbour and restaurateur Kirsten Benson. She sold her restaurant (Odin's) to Peter Langan, and Procktor, Hockney, Bacon and Lucian Freud all provided paintings to hang on the walls of Odin's and Langan's Brasserie in return for hospitality. Examples of his work are held in many major public collections including, the Arts Council of Great Britain, NPG, Tate Gallery, Bury Art Gallery, the CAS, MoMa, New York, IWM, Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Collection, Los Angeles County Museum, The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, New College, Oxford, Museums Sheffield, Sao Paulo Museum of Art, Brazil, The Old Jail Art Centre, Texas, USA, the Leeds University Gallery, University of Warwick Art Collection and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Procktor was elected RA in 1996.
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