Gordon Fazakerley

A Merseysider who relocated to Copenhagen, the painter Gordon Fazakerley played the role of outsider in Danish art

Gordon Fazakerley, artist and poet, who has died in his adopted country, Denmark, aged 74, spent more than five decades there, but remained a Merseysider at heart.
Born in Widnes, he eschewed the family grocery business to enrol, in the face of family opposition, at Liverpool School of Art and then the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. He had his first solo exhibition in 1959 at the Institute of Contemporary Art, organised by Herbert Read and Lawrence Alloway when Gordon was doing his national service. In 1961, using winnings from his part-time bookmaker's job, he travelled to Sweden and came into contact with Jørgen Nash and the Bauhaus situationist group, becoming a founder member at Asger Jorn's farm in Drakabygget and editor of the breakaway Situationist Times.
It was there that he met Ulla Borchsensius, a journalist who had gone to interview the group; they married and settled in Copenhagen. Gordon played the role of outsider in Danish art, unaffected by events within it, his paintings in the style of postwar abstract impressionism based on literature and music.
He went on to have many exhibitions, in Denmark principally, culminating in a major retrospective in 2000 at the Museum Jorn in Silkeborg, but also in Sweden, Germany and Britain, where most recently he was part of the 2007 Tate Liverpool exhibition Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant Garde.
Gordon kept his British passport, his love of pubs (visiting the UK regularly for a "fix" and exhibitions) and northern dishes (he was an excellent cook), his Widnes accent (he never learned to speak Danish), but most essentially his Merseyside humour. He was a fan of Monty Python; his humour could best be described as unpredictable, rude, disrespectful, non-PC and acidic. He had a unique take on life and was great company.
He is survived by Ulla, his children, Susan and David, and two grandchildren.