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Maurice Cockrill

British artist (1936-2013)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ6792959
Source-derived summary

Professor Maurice Cockrill, (8 October 1935 – 1 December 2013) was a British painter and poet.

Born in Hartlepool, County Durham, he studied at Wrexham School of Art, North East Wales, then Denbigh Technical College and later the University of Reading from 1960–64.

In Liverpool, where he lived for nearly twenty years from 1964, he taught at Liverpool College of Art and Liverpool Polytechnic and Nottingham University. At the latter he was closely associated with David Taborn who had a pivotal role in developing Cockrill's works. He was a central figure in Liverpool's artistic life, regularly exhibiting at the Walker Art Gallery, before his departure for London in 1982.

Cockrill's Liverpool work was in line with that of John Baum, Sam Walsh and Adrian Henri, employing Pop and Photo-Realist styles, but later he moved towards Romantic Expressionism, as it was shown in his retrospective at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool in 1995.

His poetry was published in magazines such as "Ambit" and "Poetry Review".

He was formerly the Keeper of the Royal Academy, and as such managed the RA Schools of the Establishment as well as being a member of the board and executive committee.

Cockrill received the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition, in addition to awards from the Arts Council of Great Britain, Flags and other Projects, Royal Festival Hall, the Arts Council of Great Britain (Major Award), and the Arts Council Works of Art in Public Spaces. He was also given a British Council Award in 1985.

Editorial summary

“Maurice Cockrill” enters the record as british artist (1936-2013). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Maurice, Cockrill and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1935, 2013, 1960, 1964—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1936-10-08, 1936-10—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Maurice, Cockrill and British.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Maurice Cockrill” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Maurice, Cockrill and British provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6792959. VIAF identifies the subject as 57420519. The Library of Congress control number is nr94018622. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 2013, 1960 and 1964.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Maurice Cockrill primary sources, Maurice Cockrill archive and Maurice research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Maurice Cockrill” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.