Filey Beach, June 14 Print

Malcolm Ludvigsen’s CV I am a plein-air oil painter best known for my Yorkshire seascapes and beach scenes. I believe that working outside, directly in front of the subject, gives my work a life and vibrancy sadly lacking in much of studio work. My paintings can be seen in homes and galleries throughout the UK and the USA - and many other places too. In 2013 I won the Oldie, £5000, British Art Award. As well as being a painter I am also a professor of mathematics, specialising in relativity and cosmology. About 10 years ago I took a sabbatical and started painting for fun. I think the thing that first attracted me was John Ruskin's exhortation that all men, as part of their morning salutations, should go out and paint a picture of the sky. This sounded like a very nice thing to do, so I decided to give it a go, and I've not really stopped painting since. My professorship is from the University of Linkoping in Sweden where I worked for several years. I also do some teaching at York University. My research work deals mostly with black holes, gravitational radiation and cosmology. I am the author of quite a well-known book called General Relativity - A Geometric Approach, published by Cambridge University Press (also available in a French translation with a preface by Sir Roger Penrose). I find little incompatibility between my mathematical work and my painting: both are based on geometrical intuition, one internal the other external. I live and work in York.