The dates of the forthcoming 2026 Summer open weekends at Blondes Fine Art have just been announced and will be Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th June together with the following weekend of 20th and 21st June.
Cambridge Botantical Gardens by Alan Burgess
Based just north of London on the Hertfordshire - Essex borders the gallery holds an eclectic mix of art and has become a destination for buyers of both modern British and contemporary art. This years Summer exhibitions theme is ‘Gardens and Holidays’ and there will be works from a variety of Artists about which more will be revealed in the coming weeks. Today we are delighted to announce that we will be featuring a collection of 10 works by Alan Burgess who was based in Roydon, Essex which is an adjacent village to Widford in Hertfordshire where Blondes Fine Art are located.
Alan Burgess (c. 1937–2025) was a British landscape painter, art teacher, and environmental advocate whose life and work were deeply rooted in the natural world—particularly the trees, flowers and countryside.
Life and career
Alan Burgess was born in West Mersea, Essex, and trained at Colchester School of Art, where he won a landscape painting prize early in his development.
He gained early recognition in 1957 when he was selected for the Young Contemporaries exhibition in London, a key showcase for emerging British artists. This exhibition had many other young artists included and one such artist was Bridget Riley who went on become one of our best known and highly regarded exponents of abstraction. Alan was very much part of this early abstract movement and a member of the Free painters group where he got to know Frank Avery Wilson, Leslie Marr, Roderic Barrett, Roy Turner Durrant, Chris Holden, Aubrey Williams and Denis Bowen to name just a few. He would later abandon abstraction but we do have some of his early work from this period available to purchase in our Summer show.
Alongside his own practice, he built a long and influential teaching career, spending nearly 30 years as a lecturer in art and design.
Alan’s work evolved over time. He began, as mentioned above, with abstract painting but gradually moved toward landscape and nature-based subjects, especially after settling in Roydon, Essex in the late 1960s. His paintings—across oil, acrylic, and watercolour—focused on capturing the vitality and presence of the natural environment. Trees became a central motif, often treated almost as portraits, reflecting both their physical form and symbolic weight.
In later years, he developed an interest in “multiples”—series of works exploring the same subject from different viewpoints or moments, adding a reflective, almost meditative dimension to his practice. He also produced a series of highly colourful images of flower gardens which will also be featured in the coming Blondes Fine Art exhibition.
Alan’s Studio
Major works
His most ambitious and widely recognised project was “The 50 Great British Trees”, a series of 50 oil paintings depicting notable trees selected by the Tree Council to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee.
He travelled across the UK to paint each tree on location, and the series was exhibited at venues including the National Arboretum at Westonbirt and a number of other high profile galleries.
Environmental work and philosophy
Alan Burgess was more than a painter of nature—he was actively involved in protecting it. He helped lead local campaigns to preserve green belt land, organised tree planting, and contributed to restoring historic landscapes such as ancient pathways. He was a dedicated painter who would pack his art materials wherever he went, which included his summer holidays, and he has left a legacy of work that covers paintings of the Lake District and Suffolk - where he exhibited at The Pheonix Gallery Lavenham together with work from a number of European destinations, particularly Italy.
His artistic practice, environmental activism, and interest in meditation were closely connected, reflecting a holistic view of art as a way of engaging with the world.
Alan sadly died in late October 2025 at the age of 88 after a period of ill health.
He is remembered as a quiet but deeply influential figure—a painter devoted to the British landscape, a committed teacher, and a passionate advocate for the natural environment.
Blondes Fine Art are looking forward to helping remember Alan and his work in the June exhibition.