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The Temple

Thomas A. Greeves

From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum

Architectural Ruins

Dominant colour

The Temple is a work by Thomas A. Greeves, depicting Ruins, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.

Who painted this?: Thomas A. Greeves
Where can I see it?: Victoria and Albert Museum

About this work

This is a drawing of ruins by Thomas A. Greeves. It sits in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The work is a fantasy take on crumbling buildings. Greeves trained as an architect but never built. He drew ruins from India, Pakistan and Europe. His 1994 book lists Moghul mosques, Buddhist caves and colonial ruins as inspiration. Look up the technique called cross-hatching next.

The story of this work

Overview

Thomas A. Greeves, an architectural draughtsman born in London in 1917, created imaginative drawings of ruins, drawing inspiration from Moghul mosques, Buddhist rock-cut temples, Portuguese colonial ruins, and Gothic Revival buildings. Trained at the Slade School of Art and the Architectural Association after serving in World War II, he never practiced as an architect but applied his architectural knowledge to produce plausible yet fantastical visions of decay. His works appeared in publications such as *The Saturday Book*, *Country Life*, and *The Architects’ Journal*, and were exhibited at…

Read the full account in the museum source.

About the artist

Artist

Thomas A. Greeves

Thomas A. Greeves carried a tiny notebook everywhere, sketching whatever moved—or didn’t. He once drew the same London bus stop for three years straight, just to catch how light bent on wet pavement. His drawings look…

See the richer artist page