Le Grice started his career as a painter but began to make film and computer works in the mid 1960s,[5] becoming a pioneer of computer-generated filmmaking.[6] From that point he showed regularly in Europe and the U.S. and his work was screened in many international film festivals, including retrospectives at the 2015 Media City Film Festival and REDCAT in 2019. He also showed in major art exhibitions including the Biennale de Paris 8, Arte Inglese Oggi, Milan, Une histoire du cinéma [fr], Paris, Documenta 6,[7] X-Screen at the Mumok,[8] and Behind the Facts at the Fundació Joan Miró.[9]
His work was screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Louvre and the Tate Modern and Tate Britain and is in permanent collections including: the Centre Pompidou, the Cinematek, the National Film and Sound Archive, Deutsche Kinemathek, Canadian Distribution Centre, Montreal and Archives du Film Experimental D'Avignon. A number of his longer films were transmitted on British television, including Finnegans Chin, Sketches for a Sensual Philosophy and Chronos Fragmented. His main works from the mid 1980s were in video and digital media and includes the multi-projection video installation works The Cyclops Cycle and Treatise.
Le Grice wrote critical and theoretical works including a history of experimental cinema, titled Abstract Film and Beyond (1977, Studio Vista and MIT). For three years in the 1970s he wrote a regular column for the art monthly Studio International and published numerous other articles on film, video and digital media. Many of these were collected and published under the title Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age by the British Film Institute in 2011. Le Grice was a Professor Emeritus of the University of the Arts London.[10] He established the Film Department at Saint Martin's School of Art. Le Grice was also a former Dean of Media Art at the University of Westminster. He served on the committees of the British Film Institute, the Arts Council, the CNAA, the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.[4]
Le Grice was married to Judith Le Grice and had two children.[11][12][13] He died on 3 December 2024, at the age of 84.[14][15]
Selected works
Paintings
Untitled (1962)
Painting (1963)
Castle Assemblage 1 (1964)
Castle Assemblage 2 (1964)
After Manet 1 (1985)
Walking By (1985)
Leonardo Tryptich (1993)
Berlin Horse Block (1998)
Before you came After I've gone (2003)
Orchard Comp 5b
Topology Exploration 3
Films, videos and photographs
China Tea (Silent, 1965)
Castle 1 (1966)
Little Dog for Roger (1967)
Yes No Maybe Maybenot (1967)
Talla (Silent, 1967)
Blind White Duration (Silent, 1967)
Castle Two (1968)
Grass (Slide-tape, 1968)
Wharf (Slide-tape film, 1968)
Spot the Microdot (1969)
Lucky Pigs (1970)
Reign of the Vampire (1970)
Berlin Horse (1970)
Love Story 1 (Shadow play film, 1971)
Love Story 2 (1971)
Horror Film 1 (Shadow play film, 1971)
Your Lips 3 (1971)
1919 (1971)
Newport (Silent, 1972)
Whitchurch Down (1972)
Threshold (1972)
Love Story 3 (Performance film, 1972)
Horror Film 2 (Shadow play, 1972)
Blue Field Duration (1972)
After Leonardo (Play, 1973)
Don't Say (Silent, 1973)
Pre-Production (Slide-tape, 1973)
Matrix (Loop film, 1973)
Four Wall Duration (Loop film, 1973)
Gross Fog (Loop film, 1973)
Joseph's Coat (Loop film, 1973)
Principles of Cinematography (Performance film, 1973)
Screen Entrance Exit (Performance film, 1974)
After Lumiere - l'arroseur arrosé (1974)
After Manet - le dejeuner sur l'herb (1975)
Academic Still Life (1976)
Time and Motion Study (1976)
Blackbird Descending - tense alignment (1977)
Emily - third party speculation (1979)
Finnegans Chin - temporal economy (1981)
Digital Still Life (Video, 1984–1986)
Arbitrary Logic (Video, 1984–1986)
Heads I Win - Tails You Lose (Video, 1986)
Like a Fox (Co-edited with Gill Etherley, Video, 1988)
Rock Wave (Video, 1988)
Juniper and the myths of origin (1988)
Veritas (Video, 1988)
Beware (Video, 1988)
Et in Arcadia Ego (1988)
Rape (1990)
Weir (1993)
Prelude (1993)
Race (1993)
Warsaw Window (1994)
Cidre Boucher (1994)
Balcony Water Colour (1994)
Seeing the Future (1994)
Out of the Crypt (1995)
For the Benefit of Mr K (1995)
Chronos Fragmented (1995)
Joseph's Newer Coat (1998)
Joseph's Newer Coat 6 (Video, 1998)
Even the Cyclops Pays the Ferryman (Video, 1998)
Still Life and Lunch in Little Italy (Video, 1999)
Jazzy Jazzy Jazzy (Video, 2000)
Neither Here Nor There (Video, 2001)
Unforgettable - that's what you are (Loop video and art installation, 2002; Reworked in 2006)
^Pagán, Alberte (2022). Gouveia Monteiro, Helena (ed.). Emotional Materials/Personal Processes - Six Interviews with Experimental Filmmakers. Printed by Paper View Books. Stereo Editions. p. 184.
