New into Autumn

A quite exceptional self-taught artist, Craig was born and brought up very close to Manchester; relocating in his late teens to Brighton, Craig began to express both himself and those around him through paint, building a solid reputation as a painter of portraiture. Returning recently to the North West, Craig continues to focus his work around a figurative narrative, but with a very individual method of expression.

Now an invited member of The Contemporary British Portrait Painters, Craig's work has undertones of both Stanley Spencer and Lucian Freud; Craig’s works often have a feel, through tone and subject matter, of a Britain of the 1940s and 50s, an era Craig immerses himself in through his daily life.

We’re very proud to be working in partnership with Craig and bringing his unique paintings to a new and growing audience

Alasdair Gray was born in Glasgow in 1934 into a working-class family, his father a factory worker and his mother working in a clothing warehouse. After years of moving around the country due to the evacuation efforts in the Second World War, Gray’s family settled down in Riddrie, where he attended Whitehill Secondary School and won prizes for art and English- an early indicator of his artistic interests. These were furthered by his fondness for the works of Edgar Allen Poe, which became a great influence on his works later in life.

When he turned 18 he enrolled in the Glasgow School of Art, graduating with a degree in Design and Mural Painting, then working as a freelance artist, specialising in murals and gaining recognition for their intricacies and his eye for detail. Outside of murals, perhaps his most well-known body of work is from his time as Glasgow’s ‘artist recorder’, creating hundreds of drawings of notable people, places, and the general public. Over the decades, his work would be shown in such notable galleries as The Tate, Scottish National Galleries, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Hunterian Museum.

1927 - 2006
Born in Leeds in 1927 to Polish Jewish parents, Joash Woodrow was number seven of nine siblings. Studying art at Leeds College of Art and from 1950-53 Joash was to win a scholarship to The Royal College of Art, where is contemporaries included Peter Blake, John Bratby, Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach. Returning north and back home after graduation, Joash was to fall into a somewhat reclusive lifestyle in the decades which followed, albeit one where he found solace and meaning in his paintings and drawings.

In 2001 in a chance discovery, the painter Christopher Wood came across a copy of an issue of the Victorian ‘Magazine of Art’ that had been owned by Joash Woodrow, who had reworked the illustrations by hand, using paint, collage and drawings, and so reinventing the magazine. He showed the magazine to a conservator and gallery owner Andrew Stewart which led to him vising Joash’s home to discover the extensive collection of work never seen before; a life’s achievement.

The first exhibition of his work followed at 108 Fine Art Gallery in Harrogate in 2002, followed soon after by the Leeds Art Gallery. Further exhibitions were held at Manchester Art Gallery, Ben Uri Gallery, London and the Royal College of Art in 2005, followed in 2009 by an exhibition at the Fine Art Society.

A truly inventive and important artist, works by Joash Woodrow are held in several public art collections including, Leeds City Art Gallery, The Stanley and Audrey Burton Art Gallery, University of Leeds, Manchester Art Gallery, Ben Uri Gallery, the University of Hull and Pallant House.

REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ESTATE OF THE LATE NORMAN CORNISH
One of the most celebrated of the mining painters of the last century and this, Norman Cornish was born in 1919 in Spennymoor, County Durham.

As with most of his generation, he began work in the pits at an early age, but was driven to paint at a similarly early age, and was accepted into the Settlement at the age of 15, later to become known as The Pitman's Academy.

Exhibiting with his peers at the Laing Gallery, Norman Cornish held his first exhibition in 1959 at the Stone Gallery, Newcastle, one of, if not the leading contemporary art gallery in the North. There he exhibited with LS Lowry and Sheila Fell, and in 1963 was the subject of a TV documentary by a young Melvyn Bragg about both Norman and Sheila.

In 1966 Norman Cornish left the work of a pitman and became a full time artist. Continuing to live in and amongst the mining community continued to provide him with a seemingly endless source of material from which to create his paintings. His work is a wonderful record of the life of a northern mining community, at work and at leisure, and one that is highly sought after across the UK and internationally. Norman sadly died on 1st August 2014, aged 94.

Castlegate House Gallery is proud to represent the estate of Norman Cornish, working with his family, and has a number of Norman Cornish paintings for sale depicting scenes from his time living and working in the colliery town of Spennymoor. If you would like more information, please call 01900 822149.

1888 - 1962. Harold Dearden was a painter principally in in oil and watercolour and additionally, a draughtsman in ink and wash. Dearden studied at Rochdale School of Art under H Barrett Carpenter, 1905–10, then at the Royal College of Art for five years under Gerald Moira. Dearden, a strong draughtsman, went on to become head of Swindon Art School for 30 years from 1920 and was president for a time of Swindon Artists’ Society. He exhibited in London and provincial galleries and Swindon Museum and Art Gallery holds his work. Courtesy of ArtUK

1912 - 1977

Anthony Whishaw RA studied at Chelsea School of Art from 1948 to 1952 (awarded NDD) and the Royal College of Art, London from 1952 to 1955, when he was awarded the ARCA (first class hons), the RCA Travelling Scholarship, an Abbey Minor Scholarship and a Spanish Government Scholarship.

His work deals with explorations of memory and experience. On the edge of representation, varying in intent, scale and depiction, it seeks to reconcile illusion and allusion, the abstract and the figurative, past and present pictorial languages to create unforeseen visual experiences.

His first solo show was held at the Libreria Abril, Madrid in 1956. Subsequently, he had regular exhibitions at Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, throughout the 1960s and went on to have numerous solo shows throughout the UK at venues including the ICA, London (1971), the Oxford Gallery, Oxford (1978) and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (1982). He also exhibited in many key group exhibitions from 1952, and has participated regularly in the Whitechapel Open, the Hayward Annual, and the John Moores Painting Prize.

He has many awards to his name, including the RCA Drawing Prize (1954), Perth International Drawing Biennale Prize (1973), South East Arts Association Painting Prize (1975), Arts Council of Great Britain Award (1978), Greater London Council Painting Prize (1981), Abbey Premier Scholarship (1982), John Moores Minor Painting Prize (1982), Lorne Scholarship (1982-3), Joint winner Hunting Group National Art Competition (1986), and Korn Ferry Carre Oban International Picture of the Year in 1996.

He was elected a Member of the London Group in 1979, an Associate Royal Academician in 1980, a Royal Academician in 1989 and a Member of the Royal West of England Academy in 1992. Between 1958 and 1992, he taught on an occasional basis at Chelsea School of Art, and St Martins.

He lives and works in London.

Threadneedle Prize finalist David Storey is a British figurative painter. His psychologically charged paintings are about memory, with half-remembered people and places emerging from complex layers of texture and colour. 

David says, 'Personally, I find working with memory very therapeutic as well as creatively invaluable. I become haunted by the image I'm developing and it's tremendously satisfying when I manage to get the milky idea from the back of my mind onto the canvas.'

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

A short film of David and his work may be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_AbuSuXOPw&feature=youtu.be

"My paintings are an exploration of memory. They offer glimpsed or half-remembered figures and faces – 're-imagined ancestors' recovered from a personal archive of the forgotten.

I come from West Cumbria, which is a bleak coastal plain, welded onto the side of the Lake District. The municipal buildings and churches are mainly Victorian and built of sand stone that turns black when it rains... and it rains an awful lot there. This melancholy and primordial world of black buildings, rain, sea and mountains in which I grew up is the one that I paint.

Wherever possible I paint using my fingers, palette knives and rags instead of brushes, I achieve a much more expressive result and find I can create a fuller range of tones, colours, textures and lines working this way"

CV

Born: 1954, Workington, Cumbria

Education:

1996 - 96 Slade School of Art, Summer School

1973 - 76 Middlesex University, BA honours degree, art & design

1972 - 73 Hornsey Art College, Foundation Course

1967 - 72 St. Bees School, Cumbria

Professional Experience:

1995 - present: Artist.

1986 - 94 Artist/designer, The Bureaux

1991 - 92 External Assessor Croydon Art College

1987 - 90 Visiting lecturer Central St. Martins, London

1983 - 85 Art Director, Chrysalis Records and 2-Tone Records

1979 - 82 Designer, Chrysalis Records and 2-Tone Records

1977 - 79 Designer, Rocket Records

William G Bell 1928 - 2006

William G Bell was born in Barrow-in-Furness on April 20th 1928. Following the death of his mother when he was just ten, he was raised by his grandmother. Due to financial constraints, Bill left school at 14 and went to work at the then Vickers Shipyard in Barrow.

Always interested in drawing, Bill began experimenting with painting in his late teens, soon gaining an interest not in the nearby Lake District, but in the immediate world around him, be it working or leisure.

As a capstan operator and machine shop foreman, Bill had hands on experience of the industrial process. The variety of skills and the environment in which they were employed proved an endless source of inspiration. He was
fascinated by industry, having a lifelong interest in mining, shipbuilding, transport and heavy industries.

When away from Barrow, be it day trips or family holidays, Bill always sought out subjects to sketch for possible future paintings on his return home.
On a holiday to Glasgow for example, he journeyed to the Gorbals, to capture the unique architecture and atmosphere of the place. As with many of the
paintings in the exhibition, the painting of the Gorbals will be exhibited with the preparatory sketches completed on such a trip.

When back home in Barrow, Bill continued to be inspired by what he encountered every day; the shipyards, the pigeon pens, the back streets of Askam. All were a constant source of inspiration.

The shop floor at Vickers proved to be a somewhat fertile ground for young artists. Not only was Bill painting, whenever he could, what he saw about him, he was also working with a young apprentice, Keith Tyson, who was to later become a Turner Prize winner.

Bill had other interests. He was a talented engineer, an enthusiastic owner of three classic cars and an avid bibliophile. Painting was, however, his first love and abiding passion throughout his whole adult life.

Bill mostly worked in oils, occasionally in watercolour, pastel and charcoal. He was a founder member and President of the Barrow Society of Artists, a member of the Lakes Artists Society and was widely exhibited, from the 1950s until his death in 2006, including the Royal Academy London, the Royal Scottish Academy, Abbot Hall, the Harris Museum, Preston and the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. One of Bill’s paintings, Bath Time, chosen by L S Lowry, was even filmed for a BBC television programme in 1958.

Bill’s paintings are instantly recognisable. His subject matter displays little of the romanticism of many of those painting Cumbria, both then and now. At times, purposefully naive, always honest. Bill has left a legacy; a record of how life was in Cumbria and beyond from the 1950s onwards.

John Emmet Sheridan was born on June 14, 1877, in Tomah, Wisconsin, attending Georgetown University and graduating in 1901.

During World War I, he created many patriotic posters in support of the United States' war effort as part of the committee of artists that also included Charles Dana Gibson (creator of the Gibson Girl) and James Montgomery Flagg (creator of the iconic Uncle Sam recruiting poster).

Sheridan was art editor for the Washington Times (predecessor of the now-defunct Washington Times-Herald) and worked for the San Francisco Chronicle in the development of its first color Sunday supplement. Between 1931 and 1939 he produced 13 cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post.

Sheridan died on July 3, 1948 in New York. 

1935 - 2002

When scouring the UK looking for modern British (20th century) works for the gallery, we often come across wonderful artworks which are unattributed or by less well-known names than we usually deal in, but which have strong appeal and ooze that "50s and 60s" style which revolutionised British art. We've decided rather than letting these works pass by, we'll acquire them and bring them to the gallery and provide others with the opportunity of owning some wonderful work but benefiting from a more modest budget.  

John Hoyland was born in England in 1934 and was educated in art from an early age. After graduating from the Sheffield School of Art and Crafts and then moving to the Sheffield  College of Art and the RA Schools in London, Hoyland travelled overseas, hitch-hiking in southern France- a stark contrast to the bleak surroundings of where he grew up, with the landscapes coming as something of a revelation to him.

However, his true influence came from an annual London show that featured predominantly large abstract paintings of at least 30 square feet in size- from here, his inspiration for the artwork he would become known for was born. In 1964, Hoyland’s first solo exhibition was held in the Marlborough New London Gallery, with this first solo museum show in 1967 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. His work at that time was mostly characterised by high-key colour, simplistic shapes and a flat picture surface- however, in the 1970s, his work began to become more textured.

Made a Royal Academician, over the decades John’s work have been exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Tate, the Yale Centre for British Art, and Damien Hirst’s Murderme Collection. Hoyland died in July 2011, aged 76.

1920 - 2014

Mike Bennett was born in Windermere, Cumbria in 1934. Studying at Lancaster and Leicester Colleges of Art from 1950-56, he was to meet June, a fellow student during this time, with them marrying in 1959 after Mike concluded a two year spell of National Service.

Already aware of, and influenced by a new wave of British artists, such as Vaughan, Hitchins and Sutherland, Mike spent much time during his college years painting at home for his own pleasure and development, and a number of paintings from this era are shown within the exhibition.

Starting off married life employed as art teachers in London, Mike and June would spend a huge part of their spare time in and around Bond Street and Cork Street, the Tate and Whitechapel Art Galleries. What was happening in the art world, and particularly within London, was having an impact on them, and it was this impact that Mike was to share with his students in his next teaching post from 1960 at the King Edward VI School in Nuneaton.

Mike loved his teaching role, and with it came the energy and physical studio space to allow him to let his artistic creativity explode. Recognition of Mike's work and talent grew, with successful exhibitions within many parts of the UK, including London, Nottingham and Leeds. In 1965, the newly-growing family moved to Yorkshire, where Mike had secured a teaching post as Lecturer of Painting at Bretton Hall (now better known as the Yorkshire Sculpture Park). He continued to exhibit his work, gaining further national recognition and critical acclaim, particularly once taken up by the Park Square Gallery, Leeds, one of the leading provincial lights for artistic talent. Mike's work was also exhibited at this time along side that of Sheila Fell and Sandra Blow at the influential Ashgate Gallery in Farnham, Surrey.

Further accolades followed Mike's acceptance into the Artists' International Association (AIA), a prestigious art group exhibiting work in it's Soho gallery. Mike was also accepted into the Midland Group of Artists. Despite its provincial underpinnings, it was regarded as one of the leading art groups during the 1950s and 60s, with Mike's work hung along side that of David Hockney.

The 1970s were to be a turning point for Mike and June. Moving to Seascale, the decision was made and both gave up formal educational employment to concentrate fully on their respective art careers. It was also at this time that Mike's work began to take on a more figurative bent. As Mike says "my work began to develop with much more realism, based on the landscape and the sea, sky and hills, but still retaining the ideas and shapes and movement of the earlier work".

Mike's work continued to be exhibited throughout the decade in both mixed and solo shows, including Abbot Hall, Kendal. As the decade progressed, Mike began to experiment with etching and was awarded a Northern Arts Printmaking Bursary in 1979 and 1980, working at Lowick House printmaking studios. 

Moving from Seascale to Port Carlisle, Mike and June spent the next thirty years looking out over the estuary; both influenced by its light and movement. During this time, Mike's work developed, but themes remained, and lineage can be seen back to even many of the large abstract works of the 1960s. Mike exhibited at Castlegate for over two decades. He deservedly has a reputation as an accomplished and highly gifted artist. 

Mike sadly passed away in October 2016.