This Website covers a period from the mid 70’s to the present, with the inclusion of 3 etchings from the mid 60’s, plus 2 early student works. It is brief review of available early work, plus a much fuller presentation of more recent work.
The 5 main headings are:
1. Figure paintings & portraits
2. Landscapes
3. Life paintings & studies
4. Drawings
5. Etchings
As an escape from the very insistent demands of large scale architectural commissions, which I had undertaken through the 60’s into the early 70’s, I began painting again in the mid 70’s. By then, anyway, the planning optimism & major project work of the 60’s, which had led to these commissions, seemed to have gone.
The portraits date from the mid 70’s. I rented a studio in Stone, which overlooked the canal & invited friends & colleagues to sit for me. A selection of these paintings were first shown in an exhibition at Stafford Art Gallery, then located above the public library, in about 1980. The earliest paintings were all done on board. Many of the drawings on show, in section 4 of the website, were done in preparation for these portraits.
Tutoring a summer painting course each year for the Wedgwood adult education college at Barlaston from the mid 90s, together with regular visits to West Dorset, led me, I think, into working from landscape. Also, I like very much the tradition of English landscape painting from Stubbs through to Nash & Ravilious Almost all the landscapes have been produced over the past 10 years, with images from both N.Staffordshire & W. Dorset. Most of the Staffordshire landscapes have been done, on location, working on stretched paper, using acrylics.
The life paintings date from about the late 70’s when I had occasional access to the life rooms at Stoke & Burslem. They are essentially academic studies in painting from the nude. Together with my early figure paintings & portraits, this was my way back into painting.
The later life studies from the 90’s are done in single 2-3hours working sessions, mostly at the Barracks studios in Newcastle u lyme.
Drawing has been a constant discipline since student days. By comparison with our present times, it seems as if we then served an apprenticeship in the craft of drawing, that now, I consider myself very fortunate to have received. The staff who then taught us, belonged to that Beaux Arts tradition that had informed European Fine Art practice since the Renaissance. A tradition which was almost at its end, and which, for better, for worse, was quickly superseded in the 50’s & 60’s.
The law applying to the arts is that they must be pursued to excess, and in the visual arts, it is the discipline of drawing which demands first, ones constant practise. All the drawings shown, are from life.
The etchings date from about the mid 60’s, when I acquired a fine, star wheel etching press, from a pottery firm in Stoke, in payment for some design work undertaken for them. I am largely self taught in the process of etching & see it as an extension of drawing into print. The early works, etched in steel, date back to this period, 2 of which were exhibited at the then, new Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. I resumed etching in the late 80s, when I had the opportunity to contribute to a large print show at Stockport Art Gallery.
Other than the Jewish etchings, which should be self explanatory, there is an early suite of 12 etchings entitled ‘Portraits of an Era 1910 -20, images which describe the period when my parents were growing up. This suite is a form of homage to them.
More recent work has been prompted by events & places that have some personal significance.
The images are all hand drawn.