Happy New Year 2022

 Wishing You All a Peaceful, Healthy and Brighter 2022 

Let us hope that we will all be able to go out in a more relaxed way and enjoy each others company again soon.

Last Orders at The Barley Mow, Oil on panel 1988 (sold)

In the 1980's the Barley Mow was a thriving local pub in Greenwich with a welcoming atmosphere. Every time the door opened at the weekend the sounds of a piano player, old time tunes and raucous singing drifted out. Sadly the pub closed but the building is now open as a Mediterranean restaurant called The Hill.

There is an interesting website that records 'lost pubs' here;

 Barley Mow, Blackheath (closedpubs.co.uk)

 

 

Pulfords Publicity

More rummaging through the archives.... my first job on leaving National Service in 1954 was as a figure artist at Pulfords Publicity in Fleet Street. Pulfords produced film posters and eventually became Britain's premier film advertising agency.

Here are some early figure studies, can you recognise them? 

Blackheath Art Society Winter Exhibition 2021

 

Message from the Blackheath Art Society; 

"We are delighted to announce our upcoming members' exhibition at Blackheath Halls. Running from 17th November - 22 December, this is our first face-to-face exhibition since 2018.

We are thrilled to be back at the freshly refurbished Blackheath Halls and thank them for their generous welcome to our members and the public."

Below are some photos of the exhibition in the Blackheath Halls Bar. The wonderful thing about this venue is that you can sit down, relax and have a drink and peruse the paintings at your leisure unobserved and without any pressure! The Blackheath Art Society have worked extremely hard to hang a really stunning exhibition full of a range of styles and subject matter, an exuberant burst of post lockdown release! All of the paintings are for sale and would make a truly unique gift. Please do come and visit and see if there is something that catches your eye! If you are a local artist and thinking of joining the group please come and view our work and get in touch, we are a very welcoming group and always keen to have new members.

   

House on the Edge of the Heath

 Since my early tuition in architecture with Gordon Scott I have always loved painting buildings either as the primary subject or in the background. Looking through my archives I came across this painting...

 My daughter persuaded me that we should take a chance and put a note through the door of the house to see if they might like to buy it. Happily they were delighted and very keen to have a painting of their beautiful Victorian house. 

Dockers Shelter, Redriff Road, Bermondsey

 More rummaging through my archives I came across this photo of an early painting... I was amazed to see that the Dockers Shelter at Redriff Road in Bermondsey still exists today. In the 1950s and 60's when I worked in Surrey Docks crowds of dockers filled the road waiting for the timber ships to come in and at lunchtime a van with a hatch served tea. I must have painted this early morning as it's very quiet! The painting has a slight feel of doom about it, the dockers awaiting their fate, a whole world about to change drastically and irrevocably. 

The shelter as it is today with a colourful mural painted along the back.

For more information about this shelter and the mural click here.

Exciting News...

 The Blackheath Art Society will be back at the newly restored Blackheath Halls for it's winter exhibition. The team at BAS work exceptionally hard to make this a success. For a casual browse of top quality work, for a unique Christmas present, for a lockdown gift to yourself (because you are worth it!) please do put the dates in your diary Wednesday 17th November until Monday 3rd January 2022. More info to follow...  

Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts Post War Life as a Student!

 Please see my new section here...

Photo courtesy of Joyce Arimatsu (nee Westwood) top left on the steps of Camberwell School of Arts.