Naomi Alexander

Naomi Alexander was born in 1938 in Hertfordshire, England, moving with her family to London in 1949. She trained as a painter, printmaker and textile designer at Hornsey College of Art followed by a period of study at Central School of Art, London. Throughout her extensive career she has achieved renown as a figurative painter specialising in domestic imagery with a particular focus upon studio and kitchen interiors.  Alexander also paints landscapes and has undertaken several significant portrait commissions. 

Travel has been a key thread running through Alexander’s artistic practice; she has worked in Israel (where she spends part of every year) Egypt and Jordan. A fascination with her Jewish heritage resulted in a four-year artistic residency in Lithuania from 2000-2004 where the artist immersed herself in the rural communities of her ancestors; a touring exhibition and book followed. She continued to explore this interest with a residency in the Gateshead Chasidic Jewish Community in 2014, teaching and painting in homes which would not usually be accessible to a non-orthodox woman. 

In 1997 she spent time as artist in residence at Chatsworth House painting the faded grandeur of the attic spaces. Although figures rarely feature in Alexander’s interiors, her pictures are infused with a sense of presence, warmth and subtle wit, evoking family life with all of its inherent joy and hardships. 

In recent years Alexander has embarked upon an astonishing new project making over 100 i-pad drawings documenting her life and marriage between the late 1950’s and 2000. This emotionally-charged body of work is nearing completion and shows the artist’s remarkable ability to survive and continue to flourish into her 80’s.  

In 1984 Alexander was elected a member of the Royal Society of Oil Painter at the Mall Galleries, London. Her work has been exhibited internationally and has been selected for the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London regularly since 1985.

Her paintings are held in numerous notable collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum collection, London; New Hall, University of Cambridge; Europas Parkas, Lithuania; Baker Tilly, London; and the collection of the Sultan of Oman.

‘Naomi Alexander: Domesticity’ was published in 2015 to accompany a comprehensive exhibition of the same name at the Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead. 

In 2024 she was made an honourary member of the SGFA (Society of Graphic Fine Art).

She lives and works in her home of over 50 years in north London.