the elemental north 2014 Peter Hicks 1. Winter Landscape acrylic on canvas 1 70 x 155 cms 27 ⁄2 x 61 ins 50 x70cms19 pencil scene Industrial 1947–2001 Grimshaw, Trevor (no. 36) detail Cover

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be transmitted in any form or by any means, orbyany form betransmittedin any this publicationmay of All rightsreserved.Nopart electronic ormechanical,includingphotocopy, storageand recording, information orany CCCLXIV retrieval system, without the prior permission inwritingfromretrieval system,withoutthepriorpermission thepublisher. © David MessumFineArt © David MessumFineArt Published byDavid ISBN 978-1-908486-56-1PublicationNo:CCCLXIV 5 ⁄ 8 x27 Photography: Steve RussellPrintedbyConnektColour Steve Photography: The Studio, Lords Wood, Marlow, Buckinghamshire. 1 ⁄ 2 ins Tel: 01628486565www.messums.com

Opposite (no. 113) William Ralph Turner, 1920–2013 7 o'clock am oil on board 1 3 54.6 x 72 cms 21 ⁄2 x 28 ⁄8 ins the elemental north 2014

Sue Atkinson Trevor Grimshaw Pam Poskitt Jake Attree Gordon Radford Arthur Berry Dave Hartley Brian Bradshaw Andrew Hemingway Margaret Shields Peter Brook Peter Hicks Peter Stanaway George Anthony Butler Nicholas Horsfield Len Tabner Helen Clapcott Percy Kelly John Thompson Lilian Colbourn William Turner

Messum’s Detail (no. 112) John Thompson, 1924–2011 www.messums.com Group Series – 919 black ink on paper 8 Cork Street, London W1S 3LJ 1 66 x 85 cms 26 x 33 ⁄2 ins Telephone: +44 (0)20 7437 5545 Sue Atkinson, b.1949

The naïve charm of Sue Atkinson’s work belies her deep knowledge and objectivity, humour and genuine affection. Her work has been exhibited at Foreword empathy with the people and landscapes of Whitby, Runswick Bay, and of The Royal Academy, The New English Art Club, The Royal Society of Painters course, her native Bradford. The daughter of a wool merchant, she trained at in Watercolour, The Royal Society of Marine Artists and most recently, was While it is true that compass needles generally point north, a magnetic aware of these shifts in energy and identity. Peter Stanaway combines post- Wakefield College of Art, and while she herself describes her subject matter included in the RWS/Sunday Times Watercolour Competition. compass will point slightly east of north in one part of the world and slightly cubism with social commentary in his millscapes. Helen Clapcott uses as “little people groups”, her images are always carefully balanced between west of north in another. What is more, these deviations are not constant, panorama and subdued tones in her work that hint at a future beyond the but will continue to shift along with the solid and molten stuff deep within viaduct. Geoffrey Key paints industrial landscapes with the fleeting eye of an the earth. urbanite and is equally, if not more, interested in the people who now make the second most populous city in Britain. Dave Hartley draws Geophysics might not seem an appropriate starting point for a discussion of on the technique of Trevor Grimshaw and the mood of Theodore Major’s Northern art, but magnetic variation has some parallels with how and why ‘apocalyptic Wiganscapes’ to make his poetic, almost allegorical vignettes. Northern artists and their work are perceived, because there still appears to And Jake Attree’s complex impasto technique gives his paintings of both be a shift in perception depending upon who is doing the reading. York’s medieval ruins and its commercial center a tapestry-like richness. First, there is the lodestone of L.S. Lowry, an important, deservedly popular Finally, the shades of Turner, Palmer and Constable will always haunt any artist, the significance of whose work is now confused with its status as exhibition involving British landscape. But, first and foremost, Percy Kelly’s a marketing phenomenon. Secondly, there is the fact that all too many work will always be defined by his native Cumbria as much as his passion Northern artists are still compared to Lowry, regardless of whether they for draughtsmanship. Likewise, the works of Lilian Colbourn, Peter Hicks, have anything to do with anywhere near Manchester. Thirdly, speaking as Len Tabner, Margaret Shields, and Pam Poskitt were and remain inspired someone who has enjoyed limited travel in the North of , I think by the North Yorkshire Coast and Estuary and the Tees Valley. While their it must be easy to overlook just how large Yorkshire, , and for techniques vary widely, from Poskitt’s eclectically sourced mixed-media that matter, Cumbria actually are; not to mention how much they vary in collages to Hicks’s action painting, Shields’s dynamic urban views to topography, culture and local character. Tabner’s literally elemental plein-air work, all of these artists are creatively Liverpool and Manchester, for example differ vastly; the former having rooted in their native North Yorkshire, and united by their association with been generally more cosmopolitan, partly due to its shipping industry and Joe Cole, who spent a long and generous career as drawings tutor at the associated influx of migrants. Furthermore, the cities had competing and Middlesbrough School of Art. largely irreconcilable Academies. Of course, what these cities share, along Lowry’s work and reputation will continue to exert a strong pull on the public with York, are the coastal geography and/or natural resources that shaped imagination and hopefully, by association, a growing awareness of Northern them from before the 18th through to the late 20th Century. artists. As always, in presenting this, our fourth exhibition of the Elemental Inevitably, Northern British art is associated with the industrial landscape North, our goal is to contribute to this awareness. This exhibition is not meant and everything about it that is both magnificent and severe. One of the most to represent a regional survey, but each of these Northern artists (like Lowry, influential Mancunian artists, Adolphe Valette, was an Impressionist whose who, after all did not work in a vacuum, and cited Rossetti as his greatest style was specifically inspired by the city’s dense pollution. Lowry was the influence) were inspired not only by their immediate surroundings, but also archetypal painter of the pre-war millscape and his “matchstick men” are the works of (among others) Breughel, Sickert, Munch and the School of alternately interpreted as sentimental and joyless. Harry Rutherford, on the Paris. Their paintings and drawings variously illustrate mills, moorlands, other hand, a follower of Sickert, more obviously distinguished workers from still lifes and city life, but above all, the sheer variety of Northern art and their surroundings; many of his paintings actively celebrated their lives outside how it continues to be drawn in new and fascinating directions. the factory gates. Roger Hampson and William Turner were far more unsparing For their advice and expertise in preparing our research into this catalogue, in depicting the stark reality of living in a declining community, but they were we would like to sincerely thank Ian Burke, Val Fairburn Barnes, Anthony also aware that if the man-made was disappearing, the people remained. Cosgrove, Peter Davies, David Gunning, Stephen Whittle and Gloria Wilson. As the factories, mills and mines closed, their communities correspondingly Andrea Gates found new magnetic centres and contemporary Northern artists are keenly Art Historian and Archivist, Messum’s Fine Art 2. A Stroll on Runswick Bay acrylic on board 40.6 x 50.8 cms 16 x 20 ins Sue Atkinson cont. Jake Attree, b.1950

Working from his studio at Dean Clough in Halifax – an enormous mill complex that once housed Crossley Carpets – Jake Attree’s boldly textural 3. A Yorkshire Shepherd acrylic on canvas views of York, London, and even New York City, 1 30.5 x 31 cms 12 x 12 ⁄4 ins assert not only his command of oil paint, but also his perceptions of how a city’s architecture, whether sacred or urban, can both nurture and 4. Red Square proscribe its inhabitants. His distinctive tapestry- acrylic on board 7 like handling of medium and form creates images 25.4 x 20 cms 10 x 7 ⁄8 ins that draw the eye from across a room, and yet, always reward closer attention. 5. A Sudden Downpour acrylic on board His birthplace of York continues to be a favoured 1 35.6 x 46 cms 14 x 18 ⁄8 ins subject of his work, and his bravura impasto technique can evoke the currents of the River Ouse, 6. A Busy Northern Mill Town the Tadcaster limestone ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, acrylic on board and rooftop views from the Minster, which recall 35.6 x 30.5 cms 14 x 12 ins works by Mondrian (one of his early influences) and mosaics from Roman Eboracum. Despite all his local ties and subject matter however, Attree is far from parochial, and his affinity for Northern European painting – an enduring source of inspiration – extends from Pieter Brueghel the Elder to the Flemish expressionist Constant Permeke.

The fully illustrated catalogue (including an essay by art historian Lynne Green) that accompanied Jake Attree’s first solo exhibition at Messum’s in January 2013 is available through Studio Publications (£15 p&p).

7. The Angel, Islington looking across Pentonville Road from Goswell Road oil on panel 1 122 x 92 cms 48 x 36 ⁄4 ins Jake Attree cont.

8. The River and the City of York from Baile Hill 9. The Chapterhouse and Great East Window, York Minster from the City Walls oil on panel oil on panel 1 1 63.5 x 84 cms 25 x 33 ⁄8 ins 86.5 x 87 cms 34 x 34 ⁄4 ins Jake Attree cont.

10. Part of the Ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, York, I oil on canvas 5 1 57.4 x 41 cms 22 ⁄8 x 16 ⁄8 ins

11. Part of the Ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, York, II 12. Grand Central Station, New York oil on canvas oil on panel 5 1 7 57.4 x 41 cms 22 ⁄8 x 16 ⁄8 ins 109 x 155 cms 42 ⁄8 x 61 ins Arthur Berry, 1925–1994 Brian Bradshaw, b. 1923

A true son of the Potteries, Arthur Berry was born the son of a publican in and broadcaster in addition to his art, Berry was a unique advocate of his Brian Bradshaw first trained at the School of Art and Manchester Upon returning to England in 1953, he painted in Manchester, as well as the Stoke-on-Trent. At fourteen, he enrolled at the Burslem School of Art before particular time and place. He was often termed “The Lowry of the Potteries”, a Regional College of Art, before he won a scholarship in 1948 to the Royal industrial, coastal, moorland and mountain landscapes of Wales. That same training at the Royal College of Art. nickname which is both somewhat patronising and inaccurate. Because while College of Art, following his demobilization. An exceptionally talented year he had his solo exhibition at City Art Gallery, followed by several his depictions of Northern industrial culture share some of Lowry’s wit and printmaker and draughtsman, he won the Prix de Rome and spent between solo exhibitions in Britain, the United States, South Africa, Australia and While he lived and worked in both London and Manchester, he remained empathy, Berry’s humour is often more sardonic, and his style owes more to at least two years at the British Academy in Rome, and travelled throughout Zimbabwe, including four retrospectives. deeply rooted to the landscape and people of Burslem. A poet, playwright his admiration for Giacometti and Jankel Adler than to Adolphe Vallete. Greece, Spain, France and Germany.

13. Eviction, 1982 14. The Brow of the Hill, 1954 chalk and ink oil on board 1 1 3 1 75 x 115 cms 29 ⁄2 x 45 ⁄4 ins 63 x 75 cms 24 ⁄4 x 29 ⁄2 ins Peter Brook RBA, 1927–2009

Born in the Pennines, Peter Brook trained at Goldsmith’s before returning Equally, these photographs inspired his technique of layering thin, smoothly to Yorkshire, where he spent most of his career painting the villages near applied oils to create a sense of depth, while maintaining his distinctly planar his home at Brighouse and the surrounding West Riding countryside. After compositions. Based partly on the photographs’ inscriptions, titles became finding a cache of Victorian photographs of the local area, Brooks became an increasingly important part of his work, which he used to add a sense of fascinated by the graphic and tonal qualities of these images, which inspired to poetry, mystery or even humour to his often prosaic views compositions. incorporate a kind of lucid nostalgia into his views of contemporary Yorkshire.

15. Croft House, c. 1972 16. Self Portrait, in a Sowerby Bridge Scarf oil on canvas oil on canvas 121.9 x 183 cms 48 x 72 ins 101.6 x 50.8 cms 40 x 20 ins George Anthony Butler, 1927–2010 Helen Clapcott, b. 1952

Born in Liverpool, George Anthony Butler trained at the Liverpool School Although born in Blackpool, and now living in Macclesfield, Helen Clapcott her paintings capture the decay and regenerations that have transformed of Art between 1944 and 1945, and after his service in the RAF, resuming moved to as a child and this prototypical North-Western mill town Stockport from a textile boomtown, to what Karl Marx called “one of the again between 1948 and 1950. A respected teacher as well as a painter, he continues to be the driving subject behind her work. Painting in the ‘more duskiest, smokiest holes in the whole industrial valley”, into what is now one taught at St Helens Art School and was head of art at Birkenhead School, austere and exacting medium’ of egg tempera (as Walter Sickert termed it), of the fastest growing commuter communities in Britain. until he retired in the late 1980s. A leading member of the Wirral Society of Arts, the Deeside Art Group and a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy, Butler was not a prolific painter, but the high quality and refinement of his work – largely realist genre scenes – earned him acclaim and exhibitions at the Crane Gallery in Manchester, Agnew’s, and with the Northern Young Contemporaries. His paintings are now in the permanent collections of Walker Art Gallery, Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead, Liverpool University, and Manchester City Art Gallery.

17. Pub Interior oil on canvas 5 23 x 27 cms 9 x 10 ⁄8 ins

18. Jeff's Easel, 1982 19. Stockport Carnival oil on canvas tempera 7 5 3 3 76 x 50 cms 29 ⁄8 x 19 ⁄8 ins 34 x 34 cms 13 ⁄8 x 13 ⁄8 ins Helen Clapcott cont.

23. Looking West oil and pencil 1 1 21 x 26 cms 8 ⁄4 x 10 ⁄4 ins

21. The Chimney West 24. Smashed Hillside oil and pencil oil and pencil 1 1 7 3 21 x 26 cms 8 ⁄4 x 10 ⁄4 ins 20 x 29 cms 7 ⁄8 x 11 ⁄8 ins

20. Long Line, Tiviot Dale 22. The Chimney 25. Before the Rebuild oil and pencil oil and pencil tempera 1 5 1 1 3 36 x 27 cms 14 ⁄8 x 10 ⁄8 ins 21 x 26 cms 8 ⁄4 x 10 ⁄4 ins 28 x 45 cms 11 x 17 ⁄4 ins Helen Clapcott cont.

26. Walled by Mills tempera 7 7 27.5 x 45.5 cms 10 ⁄8 x 17 ⁄8 ins

27. Power Station Ruin 28. Motorways tempera tempera 7 40.5 x 56 cms 16 x 22 ins 33 x 45.5 x cms 13 x 17 ⁄8 ins Lilian Colbourn, 1897–1967

Landscape was an entity for Lilian Colbourn; it was never static or independent of the elements, but in a constant state of flux, almost an extension of the artist, herself. The harsh weather conditions, turbulent sea, and coastal erosion, both natural and manmade, made the views around her adopted home of Staithes impossible to predict and therefore, endlessly fascinating. It was once a picturesque, but key fishing port in the area, and an important center for British Impressionism, but by the early 1940s, when Colbourn moved there, both the fishing industry and the artistic colonies were only a memory. And while she was not a local, having been born in Lincolnshire, she was no stranger to Staithes; it mattered to her, in fact she credited it with “saving her artistic soul”. Her resolute integrity towards Staithes and how she painted it endeared her to this tight-knit, even insular community, even if the locals were remained somewhat bemused by her “wild sort of painting”.

31. Cottages at Barras, Staithes oil on board 3 66 x 46.7 cms 26 x 18 ⁄8 ins

29. Still Life with Jug of Flowers 30. India in London 32. Footbridge, Whitby oil on board oil on canvas oil on canvas 1 7 7 50.8 x 40.6 cms 20 x 16 ins 112 x 91 cms 44 ⁄8 x 35 ⁄8 ins 61 x 91 cms 24 x 35 ⁄8 ins Lilian Colbourn cont. Trevor Grimshaw, 1947–2001

Studied at the Stockport College of Art in the 1960s, where he developed his Until his tragic death in a house fire, his work continued to be admired and distinct technique of combining oils with charcoal and graphite. His main subject collected by (among others) L.S. Lowry, Sir Edward Heath, Sir Gerald Kaufman was always the panoramic urban landscape of the industrial North with its former and the Warburton family. His work is also included in the permanent collections topography made up of smoky valleys, murky canals, railway viaducts, steam, of Tate Britain, Salford Art Gallery, Stockport Art Gallery and Bury Art Gallery. coal fog, and waste ground. He achieved the dense, but subtle atmosphere of his work – which was inspired partly by his boyhood passion for both steam trains and photography – largely by exploiting the friability of graphite.

33. La Crêperie Bretonne, Paris oil on artist's board 7 76 x 61 cms 29 ⁄8 x 24 ins

34. Paris Street Scene I oil on canvas 1 1 51 x 41 cms 20 ⁄8 x 16 ⁄8 ins

36. Industrial Scene 35. Paris Street Scene II pencil oil on canvas 50 x 70 cms 5 1 55.9 x 45.7 cms 22 x 18 ins 19 ⁄8 x 27 ⁄2 ins Roger Hampson, 1925–1996

After serving in the Royal Navy during WWII, Roger Hampson enrolled in the sustained by textile mills. But while he painted urban communities in decline, Manchester School of Art, and as a teacher, printmaker and painter, was a his work also captured the warmth, humour and resilience of the people who powerful influence on generations of Northern artists. An urban social realist continued to live there. After his retirement from teaching in 1987 – in addition in the tradition of Rutherford, Workman (and to a lesser degree, Lowry), to being President of the MAFA, he was also Principal at Bolton College and Hampson’s linocuts and oils, executed in a gritty impasto technique and later, Head at Loughborough – he painted almost ceaselessly until his death subdued palette, viscerally record the aging population and waning energies from leukaemia. In 2009, Gallery Oldham mounted a major retrospective of of his hometown of , an area once bristling with collieries and his work accompanied by a catalogue written by Stephen Whittle.

37. Sunnyside Mills, Bolton, c. 1986 oil on board 1 3 38.5 x 30 cms 15 ⁄8 x 11 ⁄4 ins

38. One-Man Band, c. 1986 oil on canvas 61 x 61 cms 24 x 24 ins Dave Hartley, b. 1970

After working in the printing industry for fifteen years, Dave Hartley began his art career as a freelance magazine illustrator, before finally devoting himself to making starkly poetic, refined graphite drawings.

Cheshire-born and now based in Stockport, his compositions focus on aspects of the largely lost industrial might of the Lancashire heartlands. While his work is profoundly influenced by that of Trevor Grimshaw, Hartley strives to impart a human element in his own work, often using titles to suggest a possible narrative, and in this respect, the works of Edward Butler Bayliss, Harry Rutherford and Adolphe Valette continue to inspire him.

39 40

39. Reddish Vales – from Meadow to Mills, 2013 pencil 25.4 x 17.8 cms 10 x 7 ins

40. Heaton Norris, – Moon over Christ Church, 2013 pencil 30.5 x 20.2 cms 12 x 8 ins

41. Out of Action, 2012 43. Incommunicado, 2012 pencil pencil 35.6 x 25.4 cms 14 x 10 ins 17.8 x 25.4 cms 7 x 10 ins

42. Robbie's Letting off Steam, 2013 44. Morning Flight, 2013 pencil pencil 35.6 x 25.4 cms 14 x 10 ins 41 42 25.4 x 35.6 cms 10 x 14 ins Dave Hartley cont.

45 46

45. Man of Steel, 2013 pastel on paper 3 3 40 x 30 cms 15 ⁄4 x 11 ⁄4 ins

46. A Watchful Eye, 2013 pencil and pastel 40.6 x 30.5 cms 16 x 12 ins

47. Stockport Rooftops, 2012 49. Home from Home, Stockport, 2013 pencil pencil 1 35.6 x 25.4 cms 14 x 10 ins 40.6 x 31 cms 16 x 12 ⁄4 ins

48. Urban Tranquility, 2013 50. Another Loser, 2013 pencil pencil 35.6 x 25.4 cms 14 x 10 ins 47 48 40.6 x 30.5 cms 16 x 12 ins Andrew Hemingway Peter Hicks, b. 1937

Yorkshire-born and based, Andrew Hemingway works in watercolour, pastel Maris, and his pastel triptych of a bonfire that recalls later Symbolist works Peter Hicks’s landscapes are literally immediate, because whatever the world, and the work of Sutherland, Nash and Pasmore also had a tremendous and egg tempera, producing images whose remarkable precision and depth by Leon Spilliaert. weather, he ventures out onto the North Yorkshire Moors to paint them. His impact on his development. His training at Middlesbrough College of Art, often stands in contrast with their delicate scale. Trained first at Barnsley work combines an intense emotional awareness of his surroundings with an where he met Sheila and Joe Cole was even more influential. Finally, it was his School of Art, he took his degree in Fine Art and Art History at Camberwell, Hemingway has exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and has mounted acute visual memory, and he is continually drawn to his native Esk Valley. growing understanding of Turner that enabled him to develop his particular and has also studied in Italy and Norway. He regularly visits The Netherlands, solo shows in Canada, The Netherlands and London. His work is now included Couched in the memories from his wartime childhood, this area still represents approach to landscape, to allow it to embrace all atmospheric (and therefore and his close study of Dutch and Flemish art strongly influenced two of these in several international private collections in Britain, the United States, Italy, a sanctuary from the upheavals of the outside world, and remains a nexus of romantic) suggestions, independent of any specific time or place, even if that three early works: a watercolour study of a corn sack reminiscent of Jacob Australia, South Africa, Germany, Japan and The Netherlands. his creative imagination. But Hicks has always been aware of the wider art place remains resolutely his native North Yorkshire.

51. Study for Solsbury Hill watercolour 3 1 22.1 x 18 cms 8 ⁄4 x 7 ⁄8 ins

52. Bonfire pastel 20.3 x 33 cms 8 x 13 ins

53. Corn Sack watercolour 51 38.1 x 27.9 cms 15 x 11 ins

53

54. In Spring acrylic on canvas 3 1 44 x 48.8 cms 17 ⁄8 x 19 ⁄4 ins

55. The Change acrylic on canvas 7 1 52 76 x 79 cms 29 ⁄8 x 31 ⁄8 ins Peter Hicks cont.

56. Folly near Rievaulx acrylic on canvas 38 x 56 cms 15 x 22 ins

57. Escarpment 58. Malham Cove acrylic on canvas acrylic on canvas 3 7 3 5 78 x 91 cms 30 ⁄4 x 35 ⁄8 ins 78 x 182 cms 30 ⁄4 x 71 ⁄8 ins Peter Hicks cont. Nicholas Horsfield,1917–2005

Although born in Surrey, Nicholas Horsfield spent almost his entire professional teaching at the local art school, but his own work rarely dealt with local subject career in Manchester and Liverpool. He was educated at Charterhouse and matter. His friend John Willett, art critic for the Manchester Guardian, had a the Royal College of Art, and after teaching in Leipzig, and serving in India house in Normandy where he often painted and Horsfield’s deep impasto and and the Far East during WWII, he taught at Dover College before moving to dense palette reflects his love and understanding of French art. Manchester to work for the Arts Council. But unlike many artists there during the 1950’s, he was not influenced by Lowry’s work and in fact, was more Between 1960 and 1965, he served as President of the now defunct Liverpool interested in the work of Merseyside artists like Arthur Hallard, George Mayer- Academy and enjoyed several solo shows in his adopted city, notably at the Marton and George Jardine. In 1956, Horsfield moved to Liverpool and began Bluecoat Chambers and a retrospective in 1997 at the Walker Art Gallery.

59. Sunlight and Mist acrylic on canvas 5 1 50 x 143 cms 19 ⁄8 x 56 ⁄4 ins 61. Wine Glass & Fruit oil on canvas 1 26 x 35.5 cms 10 ⁄4 x 14 ins 60. Dawn acrylic on canvas 1 5 62. Orange, Lemon, Glass & Knife 57 x 210 cms 22 ⁄2 x 82 ⁄8 ins oil on canvas 1 33 x 48.5 cms 13 x 19 ⁄8 ins Percy Kelly, 1918–1993

The ‘earthbound magic’ of Percy Kelly’s bold gestural charcoal drawings and But despite the support and encouragement of several prestigious art dealers, jewel-like watercolours only came to light when, after his death, his studio Kelly rarely exhibited his works and increasingly resisted selling them (not revealed a remarkably intact body of work by this notoriously reclusive (and even Melvyn Bragg could persuade him). Almost everyone who saw his work 65. The Anna retentive) artist. His work is now nationally acclaimed and hugely successful recognized his talent, but their praise fell on deaf ears and Kelly stubbornly pen & ink, gouache 1 3 54 x 72 cms 21 ⁄4 x 28 ⁄8 ins posthumous shows have been held in London and his native Cumbria, one of held onto his work until the end, despite the loneliness and poverty that a which sold out in half an hour. more public career would surely have lessened. 66. The Craig Kelly pen & ink, wash 5 1 37 x 59 cms 14 ⁄8 x 23 ⁄4 ins

63. Back Garden charcoal & gouache 56 x 38 cms 22 x 15 ins

64. Cathedral, St David's, 1976 pen & wash 1 38.1 x 51 cms 15 x 20 ⁄8 ins

67. Strumble Head, Pembrokeshire pen & ink, watercolour, wash 5 56 x 121 cms 22 x 47 ⁄8 ins Percy Kelly cont.

72. Rock Pool, Cornwall, 1959 mixed media on paper 7 55.9 x 76 cms 22 x 29 ⁄8 ins 69. Early Morning, August 1964, Port Hirs, Brittany, 1964 pen & wash 1 49.5 x 71 cms 19 ⁄2 x 28 ins 73. Cornish Landscape, 1960 68. Winter's Day, West Cumbria, 1958 mixed media on board charcoal on paper 50.8 x 71.1 cms 20 x 28 ins 7 55.9 x 76 cms 22 x 29 ⁄8 ins

71. Stag Beetle Landscape pen & ink, gouache 1 46.5 x 66 cms 18 ⁄4 x 26 ins

70. Cliffs Abereidy, Pembrokeshire, 1976 pen & wash 7 55.9 x 76 cms 22 x 29 ⁄8 ins Geoffrey Key

One of Manchester’s most celebrated artists, Geoffrey Key’s bold, graphic still lifes, landscapes, nudes, and urban scenes combine his deep allegiance to local subject matter and stylistic traditions with the brio of continental modernism. His reputation now stretches over five decades and continues to grow internationally, having now had several major exhibitions of his work in France, Hong Kong, the United States and Australia.

Born in Manchester, Key won a place at Manchester’s High School of Art before his degree and post-graduate studies at the Manchester Regional College of Art, where he trained with Harry Rutherford. After a brief period teaching, he turned full time to painting and works out of his home studio in Salford. His paintings are now in several important private, public and corporate collections including the Salford and Manchester Art Galleries, the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, the Jockey Club of Hong Kong, the Societé Roquefort, Château de St Ouen, and Perrier.

74. Factory Workers, 2012 75. Opening Set, 2013 76. City Meeting, 2012 ink on paper oil on canvas oil on canvas 1 45.7 x 31 cms 18 x 12 ⁄4 ins 122 x 91.5 cms 48 x 36 ins 91.5 x 122 cms 36 x 48 ins Geoffrey Key cont.

77. Piccadilly, Manchester, 1965 78. Wine Bar Meeting, 2013 oil on board oil on canvas 1 91.4 x 122 cms 36 x 48 ins 92 x 122 cms 36 ⁄4 x 48 ins Pam Poskitt, b. 1924

Born on a farm near Scarborough, Pam Poskitt left school at fifteen and enrolled in Scarborough Art School, where she met the young Joe Cole. She continued her training there until 1944 while also working tirelessly as a ‘Land Girl’.

Upon leaving school, Poskitt began to make strange expressionist paintings, which was perhaps understandable in the aftermath of WWII. In any case, she was never interested in making ‘pretty’ pictures. In fact, her earliest influence was Edvard Munch. But whereas Munch’s expressionism was driven by his need to exorcise personal demons, Poskitt’s expressionism was more down-to-earth, embracing the raw, often harsh beauty of her surrounding Scarborough. However, she shares Munch’s drive to see and depict only that which is essential. Equally, like Munch, there is a hint of the incomplete in Poskitt’s work, which always leaves the viewer something to discover. A farmer’s daughter, and a farmer herself, she remains feet-planted and elbows-deep in her Yorkshire surroundings. She is not deaf to Munch’s “enormous infinite scream of nature”, but it doesn’t seem to faze her. 83 79

79. Winter, 1968 mixed media on board 7 61 x 91 cms 24 x 35 ⁄8 ins

80. Hidden Margin mixed media on board 61 x 61 cms 24 x 24 ins

81. Embankment mixed media on board 1 1 41 x 46 cms 16 ⁄8 x 18 ⁄8 ins 82 84

82. Landscape IV mixed media on board 71.1 x 61 cms 28 x 24 ins

83. Expectation mixed media & collage on canvas 7 81 50.8 x 58 cms 20 x 22 ⁄8 ins

84. Wolds mixed media on board 1 7 26.7 x 58 cms 10 ⁄2 x 22 ⁄8 ins 80 Gordon Radford, b. 1936 Harry Rutherford, 1903–1985

In the early 1950s, Gordon Radford trained at Oldham School of Art before In 1975, he became a Member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Art and for Harry Rutherford was one of the most influential becoming an industrial designer, though he continued to paint throughout his many years, he exhibited work at The Royal Society of Painters in Oils. He also painters of the Northern School, and first studied professional career. During the 1970’s he met Carl Cheek and Jack Patterson at won first prize in a National Painting Competition judged by Bernard Dunstan at the Manchester School of Art under Valette, the Royal College of Art, who encouraged him to study the industrial sites and RA. His work is now in the collections of Sir Ian McKellen, the Haworth Art alongside Lowry. He was the first and youngest pupil canals of Manchester and Salford, which became the focus of his earlier works. Gallery, Rochdale Art Gallery and the Astley Cheetham Art Collection. to enrol in Sickert’s new school of art in Manchester, Radford’s figurative style, broad brushwork and ability to capture interior light and his maintained a lifelong association with the owe much to the influence of Ruskin Spear, as does his talent for anecdote. artist, who called Rutherford his “intellectual heir and successor.”

In 1937, he moved to London, where his talent for quick sketching and on-air charisma eventually lead to his being given his own television programme (the first artist to do so),Harry Rutherford’s Sketchbook, which ran on the BBC between 1950 and 1956. Soon afterward, he returned to his hometown of Hyde and was elected President of MAFA. In his later years, he taught at the Regional College of Art in Manchester, where his pupils included Geoffrey Key.

85. At the Milliners oil on board 25.5 x 25.5 cms 10 x 10 ins

86. What Time do you finish? 87. My Chair, Cat and Hat, c. 1960 oil on board oil on canvas 1 1 1 31 x 31 cms 12 ⁄4 x 12 ⁄4 ins 61 x 51 cms 24 x 20 ⁄8 ins Harry Rutherford cont. Margaret Shields

Born and raised in Middlesbrough, Margaret Shields trained at Middlesbrough Ian Burke, Master of Drawing at Eton College, perhaps best summed up College of Art, before moving to London to study at the Royal Academy of Shields’s work when he wrote: ‘Margaret is one of those artists who can see both Music. When she returned, she combined painting her mostly urban subjects, exciting and redemptive imagery in what other less informed commentators glibly label with teaching piano. After she moved to Saltburn in 1985, the view from her ‘urban wasteland’. [She] knows her subjects well and has visually researched her models and home high above the local port offered extraordinary views of both local locations for over four decades. Because of her genuine grasp of the subject matter she does craft and deep-sea shipping, which she incorporated into her work often as not depict the visual clichés of decline or a generalised social comment. Margaret’s images are a counterpart to the more leisurely, human interest scenes associated with about the natural ability to regenerate with a positive attitude and the way in which people seaside towns. adapt to their environment. Her paintings are filled with genuine insight, humour and a very personal form of visual poetry.’

The path leading off to the right leads out of the park directly to Scenes of uarban life have a my childhood home. My mother strange allure (for this artist brought me into the park in my anyway). I like painting cars pram every day. The park keeper and the blocky shapes of the had a uniform with peaked towers. Area Care workers cap and a cane, and he always are my heroes. saluted my mother.

89. White Car 90. Winter in the Park watercolour on paper watercolour on paper 7 1 3 7 12.5 x 16 cms 4 ⁄8 x 6 ⁄4 ins 12 x 15 cms 4 ⁄4 x 5 ⁄8 ins

A livid sunset, with office Buildings are piled up buildings beginning to light against a troubled sky, and up. The council’s giant TV the buses come down the screen gives out rolling ramp from on high. The messages only the artist Area Care lady on the right notices. is picking up litter.

88. Manchester Choral Society Rehearsal, c 1940 91. Centre Square 92. Babel oil on canvas watercolour on paper watercolour on paper 1 7 7 3 71 x 61 cms 28 x 24 ins 11.5 x 15 cms 4 ⁄2 x 5 ⁄8 ins 12.5 x 16.3 cms 4 ⁄8 x 6 ⁄8 ins Margaret Shields cont.

We shelter beneath our Ships ‘float’ above a hazy umbrella but enjoy the horizon, over a periwinkle storm and the chaotic sea. sea on a gentle summer day.

93. North Sea Storm 95. Blue Haze oil on canvas oil on canvas 1 40.7 x 51 cms 16 x 20 ⁄8 ins 3 5 45 x 55 cms 17 ⁄4 x 21 ⁄8 ins

The rainbow raises our spirits Bitter cold and exhilarating – and the leaping man and dog the air sings. bring us back to life.

94. Joyful 96. Riders on the Beach oil on canvas oil on canvas 5 5 50 x 66 cms 19 ⁄8 x 26 ins 50 x 66 cms 19 ⁄8 x 26 ins Tower blocks loom in the A grey blustery day, but we all take a walk on the beach anyway and reward An unbelievably hardy bride background while busy figures ourselves afterwards with hot chocolate. with groom, posing for a rush to and fro in the lunch break. photograph on a cold sharp Traffic roars in the distance. day. I was wearing anorak, scarf, hat and mittens and was still cold.

97. Woman with a Handbag A JCB eats up the former watercolour on paper consulate building. The red 3 1 13.5 x 18 cms 5 ⁄8 x 7 ⁄8 ins brick offices survive a while longer.

The ships are carved out by the big broad brushstrokes of the sea. The trees 101. December Bride 102. Bridge Street oil on canvas oil on canvas 5 5 of the park are represented by one small specimen, bowed by the wind. 50 x 66 cms 19 ⁄8 x 26 ins 50 x 66 cms 19 ⁄8 x 26 ins

98. Boxing Day oil on canvas The natural tendency of a left hander gives a lively curve and lean to the tower block. The office workers 3 5 45 x 55 cms 17 ⁄4 x 21 ⁄8 ins who have come out for fresh air and a smoke send a representative over to me to find out what I am doing – they think I look ‘official’ and have a clipboard. They are fine when they see I am just drawing. Riding bicycles in the park is forbidden.

We don’t mind cold hands and faces on a green and purple day.

99. Lily Park 100. Wind Turbines 103. Office Break 104. Fountain in Winter oil on canvas oil on canvas oil on canvas oil on canvas 7 1 8 4 3 5 7 5 3 76 x 97 cms 29 ⁄ x 38 ⁄ ins 45 x 55 cms 17 ⁄4 x 21 ⁄8 ins 61 x 81 cms 24 x 31 ⁄8 ins 60 x 77 cms 23 ⁄8 x 30 ⁄8 ins Peter Stanaway, b. 1943

Peter Stanaway’s style – marked by planar compositions, sharply delineated forms and graphic colour keys – developed partly out of his admiration for works by William Roberts, Keith Vaughan and Fernand Léger. But his focus on the slow demise of the once great cotton mills of Oldham and, in general, the North West’s ever-changing industrial landscape, give his work its distinctive regional identity.

Trained at the De La Salle Training College and Manchester University, until recently, he taught arts and ceramics at the Hilltop School in Oldham. His paintings have been exhibited at the Manchester City Art Gallery, Salford Art Gallery, Bury Art Gallery, Stockport Art Gallery, St. Edward’s Church (Lees), Oldham Art Gallery, and Liverpool Cathedral. He is a member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. 108

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107. Canal Scene, Rochdale acrylic on board 7 30.5 x 25.2 cms 12 x 9 ⁄8 ins

105. It’s only Rock ‘n’ Roll, 2013 108. Today's Catch, Seahouses, Northumberland, 2013 acrylic on board acrylic on board 1 30.5 x 23 cms 12 x 9 ins 38.1 x 46 cms 15 x 18 ⁄8 ins

106. Stamford Mill – ‘The Mill has Closed and is Never Coming Back’, 2013 109. Farmhouse, Delph, Oldham, 2013 acrylic on board acrylic on board 1 68.7 x 74 cms 27 x 29 ⁄8 ins 30.5 x 40.6 cms 12 x 16 ins 105 109 Len Tabner, b. 1946

John Berger famously observed that ‘Nature entered Turner’s work – or rather rag paper. Now sixty-five, he still works almost exclusivelyen plein air, without his imagination – as violence’. Andrew Lambirth applied this observation to post-production refinements in the studio. Literally fearless of the elements, the work of Len Tabner, but if we compare Tabner to Turner (and why not?) Tabner is known to go out to paint in all weathers, the fouler the better, then nature doesn’t so much ‘enter’ Tabner’s landscape as invade it and answering all related queries with: “I respond to what is around me and this redraw the map. is the land and the sea. I respond to the environment, so that means getting out in to it.” He paints at remarkable speed in watercolour – possibly, the least forgiving medium – often laced with pastel on very heavy, specially made, pure cotton

110. Coatham Sands: Furnace Lights, December 2000 111. The Shore South Gare: Driftwood Lying on the Sands mixed media on paper mixed media/paper 7 45.7 x 66 cms 18 x 26 ins 56 x 76 cms 22 x 29 ⁄8 ins John Thompson, 1924–2011 William Ralph Turner, 1920–2013

Born in Oldham and essentially self-taught, John Thompson painted and drew to a mere hobby. He did however, find some work drawing advertising posters Often described as a leading member of the so-called “Northern School” Largely self-taught, his career grew out of persistence and a genuine sense flat-capped figure groups that at first glance, appear homogeneous, but are for the local railway or painting the odd canvas for furniture shops. But his only of Lancashire painters. William Turner’s work nevertheless defies such of adventure. A keen motorbike rider from his boyhood, he explored the given humanity and even personality through the energy and versatility of his formal training was five years spent in evening classes studying life drawing. categorisation. During his 2005 retrospective, the curator described him “as industrialised North, constructing his own vision based solely on his own line. Now compared to the likes of Theodore Major, Harold Riley and even, Finally, at the age of 56, redundancy made him turn full time to painting and one of a very small number of English artists to fully engage with European peripatetic encounters. Nevertheless, he was able to sell his work only Lowry, Thompson was barely known until quite late in his life. drawing and his central theme is groups of working-class men, standing, expressionist art.” piecemeal and barely managed to support his prodigious output, But all that possibly queuing, but apparently waiting. But what they await exactly is changed when, at the age of 80, he finally found an agent in David Gunning of As the only surviving male child of a working-class family he left school to work something Thompson always seemed to leave to the viewer to decide, which Born in Manchester, Turner knew Lowry, but resisted being grouped with him. Todmorden Fine Art. When Gunning went to Turner’s house, he was stunned at an early age, and over the next forty years did so steadily, his art relegated is arguably what gives his work its commonality, and even wit. Turner’s art, with its bold contrasts, diagonals, and use of contours was far at the quality and variety of works that stretched back to the 1940s. Gunning more expressionistic than Lowry’s work could ever be termed and, in fact, took away twenty pictures, which he then completely sold-out in only two Turner said: “I find English painters rather stiff”, citing his inspirations as days. Utrillo, Vlaminck, Rouault, Chagall and Beckmann.

112. Group Series – 919 113. 7 o’clock am, 1959 black ink on paper oil on board 1 1 3 66 x 85 cms 26 x 33 ⁄2 ins 54.6 x 72 cms 21 ⁄2 x 28 ⁄8 ins Peter Hicks 114. Spring acrylic on canvas 1 50 x 140 cms 19 5/8 x 55 ⁄8 ins www.messums.com