Richard Bawden - His life and work

It is no secret that, here in our corner of rural Hertfordshire , Blondes Fine Art are great supporters of The Fry Public Gallery. With only a 20 minute drive to one of the most active and friendly galleries in the country, we hardly need an excuse to go for a visit or view whatever exhibition is current. So I was delighted when, a few weeks ago, we received an invitation to a preview and book launch for "Richard Bawden at 80". 

A very nicely prepared flyer promoted the title of the book, "Richard Bawden his life and work" proclaiming it to be a major new book by Malcolm Yorke, to be published in March 2016 by Fleece press.Attached was a reproduction of a rather splendid linocut of a Hare and the details of the book and price.(see below)

"Bawden is a famous name, and as he nears 80, Richard is the supreme printmaker and  beautiful watercolourist. It is a privilege to publish the first book on his life and work. Malcolm Yorke's biography, with illustrations, is timed to coincide with the Fry Gallery retrospective in April. The book runs to 200 pages in full colour." The standard copy is £242 and  55 specials with a signed etching , housed in a solander box for £364.

The launch of the book coincided with the opening preview of Richard Bawden's work which will run until 18th June 2016 and is Free Admission. I was unable to resist so set off to Saffron Walden for the 11am opening. Anyone who has been to The Fry will know that it is a small building and a squeeze at the best of times and this event was no different. It seemed that everyone had come to see Richard Bawden to wish him a happy birthday. The event was super busy and once inside I could see that both Richard Bawden and Malcolm Yorke were already hard at work signing the new book for those lucky purchasers.The book really does look fantastic and a must for any fan of Bawden's work. It was great to catch up with a few people such as David Oleman , gallery chairman, and Diana Parkin who was there to plant a big birthday kiss on Richards cheek. 

Richard Bawden signing his new book.

Richard Bawden signing his new book.

I also managed to get a few minutes to chat to the super talented, and huge supporter of the Fry , Mark Hearld . He has a exhibition in the form of an open studio at his home in York in two weeks time and is another , not to be missed, event for those who love his collage and new ceramic work. We will be there and look forward to seeing what Mark Hearld and Emily Sutton have on offer . We were lucky to purchase the collage that Mark Hearld produced to help raise funds for the Fry Gallery  leasehold  and it has pride of place in our home , and is not for sale.

I was also pleased to purchase a lovely little watercolour by Richard Bawden depicting one of his much loved cats in an equally regularly painted chair. The work is titled "darling on her chair" and will remain exhibited at The gallery until  June,  so pop along and have a look it is well worth a day out and features Richard Bawden's watercolours, Etchings and Lino Cut, all of which are for sale. A real must......... 

richard bawden watercolour

Well done Fry gallery a great event and wonderful exhibition.

 

Click this link.......For more details about events at The fry Gallery this coming year.

"Flower Watercolour painting" by Elizabeth Blackadder.

Elizabeth Blackadder was a tutor at the Edinburgh College of Art and it was during this time that she introduced a course of Botanical Drawing from plants which were at the Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh. She has a real passion for the flower and her depictions of Iris's, Poppies and Orchid are perhaps her most collected and sought after works.

During her earlier years both John Houston and Elizabeth travelled widely and painted many wonderful landscapes in Scotland, Spain , Portugal, France and Italy - to name but a few of their favourite places. Indeed we, here in Hertfordshire at Blondes Fine Art, have a number of these early works for sale and find their loose form and simplicity particularly engaging. But as fate would have it , it was the poor health of Elizabeth in the late 1970's that resulted in a slight change in direction.

She had always had a love of flowers and she turned once again to their beauty , colour and form using specimens she could source both herself and from the Botanical community in Edinburgh. So it was to be that during much of the 1980's and 90's Elizabeth Blackadder was to produce so many of these much loved and admired watercolours of flowers, many of which were exhibited and sold at The Mercury Gallery in London and Edinburgh.

It is perhaps interesting to examine the structure of these paintings. Blackadder used pencil to outline the form but leaves the background unpainted to give a vibrant white to offset the colour of the flowers. Additionally, it is the paper that she uses - a non absorbent, hot pressed paper, that allows the paint to dry in a way that it retains the strong vibrant colours of the botanical specimen. The result is a riot of colour joined together by the complex structures of the petals and stems to produce a "stand out" watercolour.

 I can recall the first time I saw one of these works in a neighbours hallway. A large work purchased directly from the artist, it depicted a group of orchids, and with a number of " real " orchid plants growing in pots nearby to mirror the work, it really showed her ability as arguably the best botanical painter of the 20th century. I know she has continued to produce watercolours of flowers but it is those from the 80's and 90's that are , in our opinion , the best of this genre. 

A recent acquisition to our Elizabeth Blackadder collection is a wonderful watercolour of "Oriental Poppies" from the 1990's  and interestingly this bears a Mercury Gallery label verso, as did a work of the same subject by her husband John Houston that we sold a few months ago. Both paintings are shown above and show how equally gifted they both were - Elizabeth in watercolour and John in oil.

Blondes Fine Art are always looking to purchase new work by both Elizabeth Blackadder and John Houston so please do contact us if you are looking to sell a work by either artist.

"War Horse" - Lucy Kemp-Welch

Lucy Kemp-Welch was painting in Cocking, located in the Sussex Downs , when WW1 broke out in August 1914. She had been busy painting some wonderful rural scenes such as "The passing train", "The return from the fields",  and "The Waterway" all of which were exhibited and sold at the Royal Academy summer exhibitions between 1912 and 1914. These fine works depicted the heavy horse "plodding" home after a hard days work. The war brought change for horses. Although the Army were on the brink of mechanisation the horse was still in use for transportation and the hauling of guns and many of those farm animals were commandeered by the War Office.

It was early in the war , and as a result of her famed depictions of working horses , that she was approached by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee to produce a picture of a cavalryman charging straight at the viewer. The artist , and friend, Rowland Wheelwright posed as the rider and Lucy's own horse Black Prince was the study for the horse. This recruiting poster is today still perhaps the most well known and iconic image produced by Kemp-Welch. But it was to " The Front" that Lucy wished to go to capture the "War Horse " in battle but she was constantly thwarted. She offered her services at Whitehall, contacted The Graphic and enrolled on a first aid course all in an effort to be allowed to work in the front line but was constantly refused. To her frustration, it was Munnings and Algernon Talmage who were recruited as Official War Artists while she had to make do with painting the artillery in training.

She found assistance in the form of Colonel Yorke , who gave her access to the horse field gun teams as they trained on Sailsbury Plain. In thanks she painted the Colonel's horse . Lucy Kemp-Welch's painting "Forward the Guns " was produced from the sketches that she had made thanks to Colonel Yorke and it was acquired for the Tate. Yorke informed Lucy that the men in his brigade were delighted with the painting. While the officer was happy the rest of the Art world got embroiled in an argument over the Chantrey Bequest Fund and their purchase of the painting for the Tate. Lucy was angry and distressed. She did, however, carry on painting images of the War Horse despite again being refused by Whitehall to paint at "The Front" in France. Interestingly page 127 of "The spirit of the horse" by Laura Wortley has two images depicted that are almost identical to the image we, here at Blondes Fine Art , currently have for sale. They are charcoal with highlights and are dated 1918.

Lucy Kemp-Welch had helped to convert both the horse and women into heroes and in 1918 women over 30, with the appropriate property qualifications, voted for the first time in a general election. Just pause for one moment and consider that fact a little longer .

It is still less than 100 years ago that women got the vote!

 

Jacob Kramer -Leeds or Whitechapel Boy ?

Jacob Kramer is a very well collected artist who ,having initially settled in the Leeds Jewish Ghetto when his family came over from Ukraine, moved to London and studied at the Slade . This period at the Slade was to become perhaps its most acclaimed,  as it nurtured some of the greatest talent of the day including Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, William Roberts, CRW Nevinson along side Isaac Rosenberg, Mark Gertler and David Bomberg. Indeed, the Slade had a significant presence of Jewish emigre students, starting with Mark Gertler in 1908. Soon after Bomberg and Clare Winsten became students, followed by three more of the artist group " The Whitechapel Boys",  Meninsky, Goldstein and Jacob Kramer, born , like Meninsky in the Ukraine and raised in Leeds. All were set apart from the other students by their extreme poverty, walking in together to Gower street from the East End , to save money.

In Isaac Rosenberg's last term he formed a brief ,unlikely friendship with Kramer who, at over 6 foot tall, towered over Rosenberg. Formidably bulky and well known for his boxing, Kramer once rescued Rosenberg from an anti-Semitic bully. Kramer admired Rosenberg's poetry and in return he dedicated a work to Kramer to mark their friendship.

He also came into contact with the Vorticists who were to influence his early work, and he exhibited with then in their 1915 exhibition when still only 23. The Vorticists were the British manifestation of Futurism, and were led by Wyndham Lewis who outlined their ideas in the short lived magazine , BLAST, published in 1914 when Kramer was in London. Although Vorticism never really took off as a coherent movement, several artists (such as Kramer) were influenced by it - eg Epstein ( The Rock Drill), Bomberg (The Mud Bath in the Tate) and most especially Nevinson who produced in some of his war paintings and etchings, some of the very best Vorticists work.  

 In the early 1920's Jacob Kramer returned to Leeds, where he became something of  local artistic celebrity . One of his major patrons was Sir Michael Sadler , one of the most discerning collectors of the day, and later became the Master of University College Oxford. Sadler was President of the ultra modernist Leeds Art Club which provided a meeting place for radical young artists such as Kramer. Sadler himself collected works by Gauguin and Kandinsky as well as the German Expressionists, so it was quite an achievement for Kramer to be included in his collection. In Leeds he also developed a reputation as a fine portraitist through which he was able to subsidise his other work. However, as time moved on , he lived in utter poverty and alcoholism, often in these later years producing poor quality portraits of local figures to pay for his drinks. He died in 1962 aged 70 years.

 

Never elected to the R.A. on the grounds of being a woman - Lucy Kemp-Welch

When Lucy Kemp-Welch was asked why she did not paint the thoroughbred horse she replied,  " But this other type is always interesting - I mean, the natural type, fashioned by nature and not by man - full of faults, variable, beautiful and lovable beyond words." It was her preference for working horses that has set her apart from other animal painters but when it comes to the art of the horse she has to be mentioned alongside Munnings and Stubbs. Although these other two artists targeted the more aristocratic owners, we at Blondes Fine Art believe that it is Lucy Kemp-Welch who has the more emotional feel of this noble animal. Her ability to capture the strength , boldness and quasi-human emotion of the horse has meant that her work still resonates with horse lovers today.

When her studio was sold by David Messum in the mid 1970's her work was in great demand , as it still is today. Indeed, one of the great collectors of her work - Elizabeth Blaxter- had a collection of over 50 of Kemp-Welch's pencil sketches and when Blaxter died the collection was sold and the proceeds given to horse charities. One of these images ,number 44 in the catalogue, has now returned to Hertfordshire and is now for sale here at Blondes Fine Art.  

From Elizabeth Blaxter

From Elizabeth Blaxter

Lucy kemp-Welch began her formal training with Sir Hubert von Herkomer's painting school at Bushy in Hertfordshire in 1891, although her ability had been nurtured by her father from a young age. Lucy was born in Bournemouth and her father was a keen amateur naturalist so with the New Forest on their doorstep  they would go out on expeditions when she would draw the specimens they collected. She sold her first picture at the age of 16 - a horses head - and from 1895 she was exhibiting regularly at the  Royal Academy.

So why why was she not elected to the R.A ? Simply, on the grounds that she was a woman!

While the male dominated society restricted her membership to the R.A. the quality of her work could not be ignored and her 1897 work Colt Hunting in the New Forest was purchased by the Chantry Bequest for the Tate, and became one of the first paintings by a woman, they had ever purchased. Between 1895 and 1949 Lucy exhibited and submitted 76 works for the R.A. Summer exhibitions of which 40 were hung.

Perhaps the most famous work by Kemp-Welch was 'Black Beauty'. In 1915 she was commissioned by J.M. Dent to illustrate Anna Sewell's classic 'Black Beauty'. She used 'Black Prince' as the model , a horse given to her by Robert Baden-Powell. It has been said that this commission allowed her to draw parallels from her own life to the book , with her independence, sense of duty, hopes and disappointments all featuring in the classic tale.

The years of WW1 were a difficult time for all and the time during which she made her most renowned images -Forward to Victory-Enlist Now, poster among many others . This aspect of her life is particularly interesting, how she was given unfettered access to the Cavalry horses in training and how she persistently attempted to find ways to get out to the front to paint the War Horse. This will be the topic of another specific blog in the coming months.

" From Essex Tractor to Abstract"

Kenneth Rowentree was a pacifist from a Quaker family and a conscientious objector, as such he was exempt from military service, so in 1940 he was one of the artists involved in the recording Britain project. In 1941 he moved with his wife , Diana,  to live in Great Bardfield Essex. He went on to contribute 12 pictures of rural Essex for the project and then moved, in 1943, out of Great Bardfield to a nearby village while still retaining strong links to the friends and fellow artists he had left behind. The Towner Gallery in Eastbourne currently has an exhibition of work form the Recording Britain project in which there are several works by Rowntree. The exhibition runs until May 2016.

 In 1945 Kenneth Rowntree together with other artist involved in the Recording Britain Project, most notably Michael Rothenstein ,was asked to design a lithograph for School Prints Ltd. He chose an image that would have been most familiar to him and  "Essex Tractor" is certainly familiar to me, as well as many other children, recalling the images in their classrooms during the 1950's and 60's.  It was a simple flat image , uncomplicated with great visual impact. Interestingly, it was the following year ,1946, that Rowntree had his first magor show at the Leicester Gallery in London. Three years later he was offered the job of tutor of mural painting at the RCA where he remained for nearly 10 years. 

 

Shown above is a subject that  Kenneth Rowntree did several times - see No.25 in the retrospective exhibition at the Fry Gallery (2015) and No. 42 in J. Milner's monograph (1992), where the same signal post appears in the background. He was also quite accustomed to using the same props in many of his paintings- a popular one was the French enamel coffee pot that he bought in France c. 1939 and kept all his life. It was in fact sold as part of his studio sale in 2009,  Lot 15.  This image shown here is from the mid 1950's when he was tutor at the RCA and is titled 'Open air still life - levisham' . The town of Levisham is located next to the North Yorks Moor railway line .

The best of Rowntree's  work manifests a strong sense of design , with, as here, a marked use of geometric pattern making and a flattening out of space. he is a master of pictorial composition, and this is evident from the beginning of his career, and not surprisingly eventually leads to complete abstraction in some of his later work.

 

 

  

 

David Hockney R.A. - Retrospective at Tate Britain.

Blondes have recently acquired David Hockney Illustrations for 14 poems by C.P.Cavafy. 1966. There are 12 etchings bound in book form from the A edition, signed and numbered by the artist 134/500. (The individual etching are not signed.) Published by Editions Alecto on handmade Barcham Green wove paper. The etchings bound as published in the cerise silk covered boards with black silk slip case. All in mint condition.

Published in 1966, it was these etchings , amongst the best produced in the 60s, that made Hockney's name. It was quite a daring venture for we must realise that homosexuality was still a criminal offence at this time. They were described by the eminent critic Edward Lucie Smith as "not only the best work I have seen by the artist, but probably the finest prints produced in England since the war."

Cavafy's homoerotic poems had been published in the 1920s, and he, like Walt Whitman (another gay poet), was a source of great inspiration to Hockney. They were not intended to be literal illustrations to the poems which had been set in Alexandria, but more an attempt to capture the both the spirit and furtive nature of homosexual love at that time. A great many of the albums have been broken up over the years, and the prints individually framed, so it's a great pleasure to be able to offer this set of 12 etchings in their original published form, with each etching accompanied on the facing page by Cavafy's poem.

 

Eileen Cooper - "A female perspective"

It seems quite obvious  that the varied, yet figurative, work of Eileen Cooper has a strong female perspective. Regardless of the imagery it is firmly rooted in what one might call an autobiographical core. With prominent themes including sexuality, birth and relationships her work has tracked her life, to form a powerful body that speaks to both men and women alike, albeit interpreted slightly differently by each of the sexes.

Original watercolour dated 2007

Original watercolour dated 2007

I was personally drawn to her work  from the 1980's which is rich in colour , Gauguin  like in its symbolism  -emotional  and imaginative- with recurring themes that appear to tell the story of life. She is a " journey woman" whose work is rather like visual poetry, cataloguing love, family life, working while balancing motherhood (she is the mother of two boys) , and  the changes both in her life and in a wider social context as she has matured.

Indeed, her work is worthy of an essay but this is not the place for that and in fact much has been written about her, particularly since she became the first female Keeper of the RA in 2010.It says a lot about Art in general that it has been so male dominated and we, here at Blondes Fine Art, find it refreshing that such a great female artist is now in such a influential position. Let us hope that she is able, through teaching and indirectly through exhibition, to act as a role model to young female artists of today. She understands the issue well having  personally been very much a lone female figure among many men, when she moved to London to study at Goldsmiths in 1971.

Eileen Cooper is a woman of today ,and her work has always been relevant and unique. In the last decade the imagery has become toned down in colour; it is less primal and more embedded in the real world; her work has changed and matured with her, yet retains a quirky edge that makes one think and add interpretation . Whether it is the images of dance or trapeze , tigers, horses or tortoises there are always figures in Cooper's work to remind us that we are the centre of our own world. She is one of our finest contemporary artists and one that we look forward to watching as she continues on her artistic journey.

  

Works on Paper Art Fair 11-14 February 2016

In 5 weeks time we will be exhibiting at the Works on Paper Art Fair , which this year is being held at the Royal Geographic Society located in Exhibition Road, London.

We have just started to prepare for the event and have an eclectic range of work from such contemporary greats as Elizabeth Blackadder, Simon Palmer, Eileen Cooper, and Richard Bawden. Additionally, there will be plenty to keep you interested if you are a collector of Harry Becker, John Knapp-Fisher, or  Josef Herman. Indeed, it is hard to select one or two to choose to highlight here, but I think worthy of note are works at opposite poles in terms of price. The first are a collection of 1940s/50's original fashion illustrations in watercolour, and  originating from Heddon Fashions in Regent St . These stylish works include a sample swatch of material intended to be used in the design. Fashion illustrations are are great way to start collecting original art and these are really not to be missed. They would look Fab in either a bedroom , dressing room or lounge and are amazingly good value at less than £200.

The  other item is a  work by the great Scottish artist Alberto Morrocco who was a talented , flamboyant and versatile artist born in Aberdeen in 1917 of Italian parents. He is perhaps most widely known for is colourful still life melons , clowns, and the Italian beach scenes usually in oil on canvas, but the work on offer here is Tempera on paper. It is the original drawing for his 1962-64 mural for St Columba's Church , Glenrothes and was commissioned by his great friend and architect Sir Anthony Wheeler. Alberto Morrocco had just been elected member of the RSA and was asked by Wheeler to produce this mural for a church that he was designing.  The mural itself was produced and can be seen in the St Columba's Church today, indeed Morrocco went on to produce another mural in the years following for Liff hospital in Dundee where he was also Head of Painting at Duncan of Jordanstone collage art school.

This original design is in original condition , squared off for transfer and was kept by Wheeler in his personal art collection until his death . It is titled "the way of the cross" and depicts Christ's journey  to his death in three distinct scenes within one painting. This really is a magnificent work in sombre pastel yet rich shades of reds, white and purple. Morrocco was a fine artist with an international reputation and this work would grace any collection .

Come along between 11-14 February and see us together with  the works mentioned here and  many more. 

Important work by John Aldridge RA tracked down by Blondes Fine Art

The oil on board pictured below has recently been found by Mark Ponting , the owner of Blondes Fine Art . It had been in the hands of a collector in South Wales for its entire life but following her death the opportunity arose for it to be returned to the Herts/Essex borders from where it originated. 

 

Here at Blondes Fine Art we have long been great fans of the Great Bardfield group of artists. In a combination of proximity to the village itself , the wonderful Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden , and the iconic work of the artists themselves we find ourselves constantly drawn to the imagery of such greats as Edward Bawden, Richard Bawden, Eric Ravilious , Michael Rothenstein, Walter and Denise Hoyle and George Chapman to name but a few. Indeed, the group was larger than the few mentioned above and changed over time as they ebbed and flowed from the village over a period of some 50 years, however, one of their number remained there throughout his life.

John Aldridge RA first moved to Gt Bardfield in 1933 the same year that John Piper identified him as one of the young up and coming artists of the era who had "unprejudiced vision" and he remained living at Place House until his death in 1986.During the 1950's the artists held open house exhibitions in 1951,54,55 and 58 which attracted thousands of people from all over the country. Following the commercial success of these they sent an exhibition down to the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol in 1959. This particular work pictured here called ' The Moors, Great Bardfield' dates from March 1955 and depicts a set of trees that was previously a subject of Aldridge's work in 1947 "Burnt trees in snow" which is reproduced on page 20 of the new  book on the Bardfield artists edited by Gill Saunders and Malcolm Yorke. Clearly it was a winter image that had an interesting structure and in many ways defines the light and landscape of rural Essex on a crisp winters day.

What makes this image of particular significance is that it was the one chosen by John Aldridge to have displayed on his  easel when his photographic portrait was taken in his Great Bardfield studio by ,one of the leading photographers of the time ,Geoffrey Ireland.Geoffrey Ireland was a photographer and writer born in 1923. He studied at the Lancaster School of Art under Ronald Grimshaw and then at the Royal College of Art, where in 1953 he was appointed the tutor for graphic design. With Bawden, Ravilious , Rothenstein and Aldridge having strong teaching links to the RCA it is perhaps not a surprise that Ireland came out to photograph them . The collection of these iconic photographs and of other RCA artists are now in the National Portrait gallery collection.

So this painting was subsequently sold in an exhibition and led a quiet life in Wales for the last 60 years,until recently found by Blondes Fine Art  of  Much Hadham , Hertfordshire. It has been subject to a professional light clean to remove surface dirt and now , still in its original frame , looks like it was painted last week! We feel privileged to now have in our personal collection what is perhaps the most important work by  John Aldridge.

 

The great Welsh art represented at Blondes Fine Art

Given that here at Blondes Fine Art, we are proud stockists of much of the very finest Welsh art, we thought it appropriate to explore some of the relevant artists that we periodically stock - namely John Elwyn, John Knapp-Fisher and Josef Herman, who together did so much over their careers to inform the sensibility and concerns of modern Welsh art.

Foremost among those artists is John Elwyn, whose gentle depictions of the landscapes of his native west Wales have gained immense popularity among collectors as his reputation as a painter has risen to match that of such greats as Kyffin Williams.

Born in Newcastle Emlyn in south Cardiganshire - the son of a woollen mill owner - Elwyn attended Carmarthen School of Art and the Art School of the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, from which he won a Royal Exhibition Scholarship to London's Royal College of Art. From 1948 he was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and taught at Portsmouth and Winchester Schools of Art, retiring in 1976. He died in 1997.

Those looking to collect a true Welsh master watercolourist, meanwhile, simply couldn't do better than investing in the rich landscapes of John Knapp-Fisher. Born in London in 1931, the son of an architecture professor at the Royal College of Art, Knapp-Fisher studied graphic design at Maidstone College of Art and later worked in exhibition and theatre design.

After five years spent living and exhibiting from his sea-going fishing boat, in 1967, Knapp-Fisher relocated to Pembrokeshire, Wales, and was soon inspired by its coast. The following decade, the largest ever exhibition of his works - including more than 60 paintings - was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1992, he was elected a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy. We were greatly saddened to hear of his death in February, aged 83.

Finally, we are also delighted to be able to stock works by the Warsaw-born realist painter who will nonetheless always be strongly associated with Wales - Josef Herman (1911-2000). Unquestionably one of the greatest Jewish émigré artists, Herman is celebrated on Welsh shores on account of his brilliant depictions of local mining communities, although on his arrival in Great Britain after escaping the Nazis, he lived at first in Glasgow before moving to London.

Only in 1944 did Herman set up home in the South Wales mining community of Ystradgynlais, where he became affectionately referred to as 'Joe Bach' and collaborated with the Neath-based artist Will Roberts. By 1948, Herman had become a naturalised British subject.

Herman is just one of the many English, Welsh and Scottish artists whose high quality works we can offer to discerning collectors here at Blondes Fine Art in Hertfordshire. Please contact us today to enquire about any of the Welsh art that we offer in our present stock.

 

Our 'magnificent seven' Scottish artists

As proud as we are here at Blondes Fine Art to offer quality work from a highly comprehensive selection of the finest English and Welsh 20th century art, we also routinely see the works of many of the last 100 years' greatest Scottish artists enter our stock.

Our gallery's current Scottish contingent includes Sir Robin Philipson, Elizabeth Blackadder, John Houston, Victoria Crowe, Alberto Morrocco, David McClure and George Devlin, and we can think of few more befitting ways to describe this group than as the 'magnificent seven'. But of course, it is always instructive to learn more of these artists' respective artistic practices, not least as the histories of each have been so often intertwined.

Of these, the best known is undoubtedly Blackadder. Born in Falkirk in 1931, the artist who continues to enjoy great recognition and success in London, while also being one of Scotland's most significant printmakers, studied at Edinburgh College of Art between 1949 and 1954 under the tutelage of Robert Henderson Blyth and William Gillies.

By 1956, Blackadder had married Houston and began a teaching career in Edinburgh, with Blackadder, Houston, Crowe and Philipson all holding staff positions at the College of Art - the latter as Head of School of Drawing and Painting. Indeed, Sir Robin had been a lecturer there as far back as 1947, having been a student of the College himself from 1936 to 1940.

For more than three decades, Philipson - born in Broughton-in-Furness in 1916 - was one of the most influential figures on the Scottish art scene, eventually becoming President of the Royal Scottish Academy and receiving a knighthood for services to the arts in 1976. He died in 1992.

Victoria Crowe, by contrast, is a member of a much younger generation of Scottish portrait and landscape painters, with works in the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland, the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Royal Scottish Academy. In many ways, she can be seen as having taken over from Blackadder, particularly in terms of botanical drawing.

That leaves, of our 'magnificent seven', Morrocco and McClure, the former born in Aberdeen in 1917 and later a student of the city's Gray's School of Art, and the latter born in Lochwinnoch in 1926 and graduating from Edinburgh College of Art - a contemporary of Blackadder and Houston - in the early 1950s.

Morrocco and McClure were great friends and colleagues, and it was the former's position as Head of Painting at Dundee College of Art that the latter took over and eventually retired from in 1985.

With such tightly associated histories, it is no surprise that these great Scottish artists are so closely linked in the public mindset, and we couldn't be happier to offer many fine works by them all here at Blondes Fine Art.

                                           

John Knapp-Fisher

For Sale now at Blondes Fine Art  are two new watercolour paintings by John Knapp-Fisher. Both are in fabulous condition and date from 1960. This was the first year that the artist had left his job designing for a theatre and began his career as a full time artist. There was a short period when he painted various locations in and around London and the home counties before purchasing a boat and exploring the eastern coast of the UK before finally settling in Pembrokeshire in 1967.These two recent acquisitions are from that early period and depict Hampstead Heath and Rye in Sussex. 

They were both with a private collection of work by Knapp-Fisher and bear personal Christmas dedications verso in the artists own hand. They have clearly been displayed out of sunlight as the colours are still rich and strong. 

The artist was influenced in his early years by  John Piper , Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood. He liked to use a limited palette seeking what he called "the edge of colour", where earth colours and touches of primary colour emerge from the darks and where tonal relationships, quality, texture and contrasts are all important.

Elizabeth Blackadder

We are finally packed and ready for the Cambridge Art Fair. We have been fans of the Scottish Artist Dame Elizabeth Blackadder RSA RA for a long time and presently have five fabulous early paintings for sale from the 1960,s and they can all be seen on our ELIZABETH BLACKADDER pages. We will have 3 at the Cambridge Art Fair so pop along and see what we have on the stand. They include a work exhibited at the RA in the Summer Exhibition.We also have a large oil painting for sale by her husband and fellow Scottish Artist John Houston and while this is not going to Cambridge it can be seen on the website. Here.

 

New John Knapp-Fisher watercolour paintings -Coming Soon

Two new John Knapp-Fisher watercolours will be added to the website in the coming weeks. These are early works from 1960 - the first year he became a professional artist- and are in fantastic condition. They are currently being remounted to ensure the condition stays good and both are signed and have the location and a hand written dedication verso. They are much larger than his later work.

Knapp-Fisher's work can almost be grouped into 4 phases.

1. Post Theatre design from 1960 - These works date from 1960 and depict landscapes in Sussex, Kent ,London and the home counties.

2. The East Coast era.  For a number of years he toured the East coast in a sea going vessel painting as he went. Many of these depict Suffolk.

3. The Pembrokeshire era. This is the bulk of his output right up until his death earlier this year.

4. The South African work. These date from the 1970's when he and his partner spent much time there.

...............................................................which ever the era we think his work is wonderful!

John Knapp - Fisher

We presently have a lovely collection of 3 John  Knapp - Fisher watercolours for sale . They date from the early 1970's and are all in good condition . Since his passing , earlier this year, the auction prices for his work just seem to go up and up. I notice that last weekend in the Rogers Jones and Co Welsh sale that watercolours were making £4,000 inc. com.  He is certainly an artist to watch! We love his work .