Anthony Dolphin (born Tittensor, 1968) is an insignificant figure in the history of European art and is likely to remain so for many millennia so he pretends to take solace in the words of Napoleon Bonaparte ("glory is fleeting but obscurity lasts forever") and the construction of biographies written in the third person.

Obscurity wasn't the objective of course and for a period it seemed notoriety could offer the route to significance artists so crave. Indeed the transgressive period (1988-1994) contains moments of which he is most proud. He was belatedly awarded a controversial first class degree in Fine Art from the University of Reading in 1992 after he was arrested for sending a letter bomb to his tutor, Roger Cook, and having his dissertation seized by the police. An appeal by Terry Frost and others in the department saved him from expulsion and further prosecution. Despite this incident and other disciplinary problems, he was praised for his "highly idiosyncratic and intense development as a painter". He stopped making visual art for a number of years, gaining Masters' degrees in both Aesthetics and Linguistics, living and working in Greece and Japan, and writing and performing with the cult Anglo-Japanese band, Santa Sprees, critically-revered and played by the likes of John Peel and Ken Fredman and making music "largely without modern parallel" but never really designed for mass crossover appeal of the type that buys you houses and holidays. Santa Sprees released their ninth collection of music, ‘Sum Total Of Insolent Blank’ in July 2020 to some acclaim from critics and artists including Ira Kaplan, Tori Kudo, Mark Kramer, Hisham Mayet, David Grubbs and David Fair.

Much of Dolphin's work in the last twenty years has been made under conditions and limitations determined before the execution of the painting or print: a motif, a strict time limit; the number of permitted strokes, the number of colours and brushes used etcetera. The resulting process (named ‘Yokes’) with its immediacy of acting and responding anchored by habit, has parallels with the tics and forward resolutions found in improvised music. None of which means anything until it does.

Dolphin attaches no importance at all to the production and reception of his work, selling it directly in the manner of Jad Fair, Jerry Smith and Jeff Zenick - a political act compensating for the new auratic emptiness and social disengagement of his work. Along with Toby Heys, Mike Marshall and Jen Southern, Anthony Dolphin was a founder member of the Affinity Group of artists and has exhibited in Europe, Japan and the United States. He is the older brother of the much better known and more committed artist, Graham Dolphin.

SELECTED PUBLIC WORK 1991 ‘A Home For Art’ – Butts Centre Basement, Reading 1991 ‘Oil On Plastic / Gulf Intervention’ – The Rising Sun Arts Centre, Reading 1991 ‘Affinity Cuckoo: Dollar Drops’ – 393 West Broadway, New York 1991 ‘Affront To Calendar’ – The Cooper Union, New York 1991 ‘Gulf Intervention’ – Town centre bus stops, ATMs and Arding & Hobbs’ rooftop, Reading 1992 ‘Prosperity Is Yr Divine Right’ – Reading University 1992 ‘End Of The Aura’ – Slade School of Fine Art 1993 ‘September Selection’ – Young Unknowns Gallery, Waterloo 1994 ‘In Heaven’ – University Of East London 1994 ‘New Contributions to the Art Strike’ – London Pamphlets & Talks 1995 ‘Take In The Corn With Santa Sprees’ – Peacock Window Musak cassette 1996 ‘Future Saint’ – Wandsworth Public Libraries 1996 ‘The Current Mind of Santa Sprees’ – Impakt Festival lobby music, Utrecht 1997 ‘Emotional Racket’ Santa Sprees – album release 1997 ‘Unified Soul: Ejector Resource’ – 372 Ste Catherine Ouest, Montreal 1999 ‘Head In The Clouds’ – Dreamy Records compilation 2001 ‘Keep Still’ Santa Sprees - album release 2001 ‘BBC Session Gideon Coe’ – Bush House, London 2001 ‘Santa Sprees Live’ – London and Oxford 2001 ‘A Wish On A Star’ – Dreamy Records compilation 2001 ‘Comes With A Smile Volume 3: Pretty Together’ – CWAS compilation 2002 ‘Get Thee Behind Me Santa’ – Puppy Dog Records compilation 2003 ‘Mail Art Consequence’ – Akarenga and other locations, Yokohama 2004 ‘Public Acts In Flux I’ – Rikugien, Tokyo 2005 ‘Public Acts In Flux III’ – Hotel C, Stockholm 2006 ‘The Inseparable Santa Sprees’ – album release 2007 ‘At Candy’ – Candy, Inage, Japan 2008 ‘Out On Our Own’ Santa Sprees - album release 2008 ‘In The Silver Loft’ – The Silver Loft, Surugadai, Japan 2009 ‘Around This House; Happening In The Library’ – Shoreditch Library, London 2012 ‘Under Preset Yokes I’ – 13 locations within Dartmoor National Park 2015 ‘Under Preset Yokes II’ – Jellyfish Arts Centre, Buckfastleigh 2016 ‘When Jad Fair Wrote A Song About My Brother’ – Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland 2018 ‘The Future Knows Best’ - Santa Sprees’ album released 2018 ‘Under Preset Yokes III’ – Bayard’s Cove Fort, Dartmouth 2018 ‘Soup/Zuppa Improvisers’ – The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow 2019 ‘Robe Phase Once Abandoned’ - Santa Sprees’ album released 2020 ‘Sum Total Of Insolent Blank’ – Santa Sprees’ album released 2020 ‘The Garden Of Earthly Delights’ – CRMK Radio Broadcast 2020 ‘Let’s Not Go Back To Normal’ – Trust The Doc TV 2020 ‘Jingles For…’ – Public Commissions