Alan Cotton is one of Britain's most distinguished Landscape Painters. He has been represented internationally by Messum's Fine Art in Cork Street London for the past twenty years, where his annual exhibitions have frequently sold out.

Alan writes, "As a child and a young man I was deeply affected by those paintings I saw, where images were  conveyed with a sensuous use of paint and the physical surface of the work had the power to excite. As a student and when I first painted on my own I began to experiment by using pigment in quantity, and to explore it’s potential for making a huge variety of textures and marks and     allowing me to convey my feelings about landscape. It was then that I took to using painting knives. "Over the years Alan has carried out a large number of public commissions including a series that were installed on the main staircase of the Queen Mary II. In 2008 he completed a commission of five large Venice paintings for the Vice-Chairman of a major USA Cruise Liner Company and his wife. These were installed in their Miami residence in December. There have been a number of television films made about his work both by the BBC and ITV and he has written, presented and narrated arts films for BBC South West. It was during the making of 'An Artist on Every Corner' - a film about the Newlyn School of Artists that Alan met the man who was to become his dealer and close friend, David Messum.

There have been many publications of Alan's work, including fifteen by Studio Publications at Messum's Fine Art, all of which can be obtained from the gallery. In 2003 a copiously illustrated biography "Alan Cotton - On A Knife Edge" by Jenny Pery was published by Halsgrove and is available from Messum's Fine Art or the publishers.
A new biography by Jenny Pery, which looks a relationships of Alan's drawings to his paintings and the artist's relationship with his dealer and his many friends, will be launched in September 2010.

In late February and March 2005 Alan was invited by His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales to be his Tour Artist and to accompany him to Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.