Carel Weight

British painter and theatre designer, born in London. He studied at the Byam Shaw School, London, 1921–3, the Royal Academy Schools briefly in 1924, the Slade School, 1924–6, and in Paris under Jean Marchand, 1926–7. In the 1930s he worked with the left-wing Group Theatre, designing sets and costumes for plays by W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Christopher Isherwood, and Louis MacNeice. During this period he became interested in Surrealism and his work was included in the London International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936. In the Second World War he worked mainly on camouflage in the Middle East. Before and after the war he taught at Chelsea School of Art, then in 1951–8 taught stage design at the Slade School.

From 1958 to 1965 he was head of the Department of Fine Art at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. His main subjects as a painter were landscape, still-life, and figure compositions, and his approach was highly varied. He continued working and exhibiting until the end of his long life and in the year of his death he won a prize for the most distinguished work in the Royal Academy summer exhibition.