About Chris Wadsworth

Chris Wadsworth was born in Sheffield in 1940 and now lives at Bassenthwaite a few miles north of Keswick in the English Lake District.

A former art teacher and graphic designer, she moved to Cumbria in 1986, bought Castlegate House and opened it as a gallery in 1987. In the last 25 years, this beautiful georgian house with its walled secret garden has won its place as one of the best and most friendly commercial galleries in the North of England.

During that time she has shown some outstanding artists and mounted solo exhibitions by well recognised figures in Twentieth Century art. These include L S Lowry, Winifred Nicholson, Michael Bennett, Sheila Fell, Sandra Blow, Wilhelmina Barns Graham, Elizabeth Frink and Mary Fedden.

Chris has also discovered rising new talent; - farmer Karen Wallbank, Marie Scott, Sarah Carrington and many more. She has travelled extensively all over the world in her search for art and artists.

Her greatest achievement has been tracking down the reclusive and retentive artist Percy Kelly, bringing him out of obscurity after his death in 1994 when his life's work was threatened with destruction, to the recognition he has today.

Chris has served on the Board of Northern Arts, Grizedale Arts and Cumbria Arts in Education. She was first published in 1988 with a series of commissioned feature articles on Art for Cumbria Life Magazine and critiques of Northern exhibitions for Art Review.

This was followed by various books and catalogues. Hercules and the Farmer's Wife published in both hard cover and then paper back was the winner of Lakeland Book of the Year in 2010. and shortlisted for the Portico Prize. Her biography of Percy Kelly, The Man who Couldn't Stop Drawing, was published 2011.

In July 2012 she decided to dedicate herself to writing full time, handing the gallery over to new owners. She is now working on a sequel to Hercules with several more books in the pipeline.