John Maine studied at the West of England College of Art from 1960 to 1964 before moving to London to attend the Royal College of Art for a further three years until 1967. After graduating, he became the first fellow at Gloucestershire College of Art, a two-year appointment. He then set up a sculpture studio in Shoreditch, London, and travelled widely. Influences from these journeys (especially to Mexico) strongly affected his work. He was awarded the first fellowship at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where he developed these ideas over two years from 1979 to 1980.

He subsequently worked in Carrara and attended the Hagi Symposium in Japan, which stimulated a lasting interest in Japanese culture. Commissioned by the Government Art Collection, he spent a year in Australia carving a granite work for the British High Commission, Canberra. Returning to London, he worked in situ to carve Arena on the South Bank outside the National Theatre. This practice of creating large works in landscape was developed further in Portland, Dorset, where he made the Chiswell Earthworks, as part of the Common Ground New Milestones Project.

Recently he has been working for extended periods in Scotland. His Entrance Works at Standard Life House, and the 8 metre high granite sculpture at the Royal Bank of Scotland, both in Edinburgh, are closely integrated with aspects of architecture. He is currently working on projects in Aberdeenshire including Place of Origin, a major sculpture/landscape project at the Kemnay granite quarries.

During the 1970s and 1980s John Maine was a part time lecturer in many art colleges, including the Royal College of Art, London. Subsequently, he has become an external assessor for various BA Hons and MA courses, and lectures occasionally.

His first solo exhibition was held at the Serpentine Gallery (1972). Since then he has shown regularly in Britain, with occasional exhibitions abroad. Among his group exhibitions are The Condition of Sculpture, Hayward Gallery, London (1975), A Silver Jubilee Exhibition of Contemporary British Sculpture, Battersea Park, London (1977), Sculptors’ Drawings, The British Council Tour of the Far East (1984), From Art to Archaeology, South Bank Centre and tour (1991), Sculpture at Goodwood (1995) and Sculpture, an Abbey and a Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral (2000).

Maine was elected Royal Academician in 1995 and a Member of the Royal West of England Academy in 1997. He has been a Commissioner at the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England since 1996. He is a member of the Westminster Abbey Fabric Commission and the Fabric Advisory Committee of St. George’s Windsor. John Maine lives and works in Wiltshire.