Bill Bell - Exhibition now live online
28th February, 2025
All works now listed online
Bill Bell, an exhibition of twenty six works from a private collection is now LIVE ON OUR WEBSITE.
This is a wonderful collection of work, and until our recent acquisition, all were hung on the walls of one family home in South London, a little piece of Cumbria overlooking Blackheath.
Works cover a wide range of subjects, all parts of Bill’s life and travels. Perhaps the most important as a social history record is the wonderful large painting “Show of Hands, Vickers, Barrow” depicting a 1972 industrial dispute at the shipyard; for us it has everything, a wonderful composition, palette, scale and subject, perhaps one of Bill’s most important works.
Work experiences as an engineer
Many of Bill’s paintings and drawings relate to his work and experiences as an engineer in the Barrow shipyards and journeys around the Cumbrian industrial centres. Stoking the Retorts, Dalton Gas Works is one such painting, you can almost feel the furnace heat jumping from the oil paint.
During the days of coal mining
Bill also captured the last days of coal mining in Cumbria, from it’s time as a working industry, as can be seen in Meal Break, Solway Colliery, Workington to works from past exhibitions where the stripping out of the mines are taking place, upon decommissioning.
Further afield
Bill didn’t just remain in Cumbria to seek inspiration, in fact he used to choose holiday locations to further his art. I recall Jenny, Bill’s daughter, once saying that they ended up in the 1970s on holiday in a rather run-down Glasgow so he could draw and paint the tenements! In this collection we have works from both London and Wales; the former weighted to some wonderful London Underground scenes, a terrific image looking from above Battersea and this, The Last Days of the Routemaster, in a crowded West End evening.
Capturing the every-day
Finally, many of the works within the collection depict the ordinary, the daily dog-walk, the allotments and this, the fabulous and comedic A Sunday Afternoon, Barrow Island, depicting a working class 1970s summer back-yard, complete with dozing vested father, mother still at work (no Sunday rest there) and son tending to his motorcycle; fabulous.
The exhibition was due to open on Saturday 8th, but in truth, we’ll have it hung for gallery-open on Wednesday 5th, so we may as well class that as the start! The exhibition will run until Saturday 29th March.
Steve and Christine
