Latest News

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS
CHRISTMAS GREETINGS 19th December 2024 Once again I’m sending a charity donation instead of a Christmas card.  It doesn’t mean I don’t love you all but it is disturbing to see people sleeping on the streets in our towns and cities.  No Christmas cards for them!  The numbers  have grown massively as rents and evictions have increased. So this year I’m  supporting Crisis at Christmas.  Your Christmas card by Percy Kelly is at the top of this newsletter. As I write this an exciting year ahead is unfolding.  The Sheila Fell exhibition a... Read More »»
SHEILA FELL 1931 - 1979
SHEILA FELL 1931 - 1979 28th November 2024 Cumberland has never been painted as I would like to see it, so I should love to do it. Cumberland is not like the rest of England. It is like no other place.                                                              Sheila Fell                                                            Don’t miss the new Sheila  Fell exhibition CUMBRIA ON CANVAS which opened last Saturday  at Tullie House in Carlisle  (the name  has just changed to Tullie but it will always be Tullie House to me.) Sheila ... Read More »»
YOU MIGHT LIKE TO SEE …
YOU MIGHT LIKE TO SEE … 20th November 2024 Several years ago a couple of retired academics from Cambridge,  Andrew and Eleanor Bradley, called to see me. They were on a mission to make a Catalogue Resonne of all Sheila Fell’s work and had found my catalogue of the 2005 exhibition of over 40 works that I mounted at Castlegate House.  It drew crowds at the time, hit the national press as well as an interview on Woman’s Hour and I sold a lot of them.  The Bradleys calculated that it would be a managable task because Sheila died at the age o... Read More »»
TITLES
TITLES 6th November 2024 A piece of art can be anything you want it to be but a title helps us understand what the maker hoped to achieve. When I opened Castlegate House as a gallery in 1987 I soon discovered that a good title could sell a piece of work. When Percy Kelly died leaving a cottage packed full of his work I was overwhelmed with the task of listing, measuring and photographing them all. In the first exhibition of 100 paintings in May 1994 I realized I couldn’t just label them as numbers. So I titled them mys... Read More »»
SUNFLOWERS
SUNFLOWERS 22nd September 2024 What is it about sunflowers and artists? Even the most miserable painters were drawn to them - even Percy Kelly splashed the yellow paint about at times.  After our non summer … again… we are all up for a bit of cheering up. What could be better than a visit to the National Gallery for their first major exhibition of Van Gogh’s works - Poets and Lovers - marking their bi-centenary. A hundred years ago they acquired one of his sunflower paintings and The Yellow Chair painted in 1888 so it just s... Read More »»
A new Kelly etching is released.
A new Kelly etching is released. 15th August 2024 KIRKGATE COCKERMOUTH This is a new print  taken from one of  Percy Kelly’s etching plates by Master printer Robert Adam (MA Hons Cantab, BA Hons ECA, HDFA Slade) of Graal Press in Edinburgh. When Percy Kelly died in July 1993 his printing press was lying in the long grass in the garden of his cottage in Norfolk. I offered to get it brought back to Cumbria and persuaded his son Brian to donate it to the print department of Carlisle College of Art where his father had learned the art of printing... Read More »»
A VISIT TO JUPITER AND BEYOND
A VISIT TO JUPITER AND BEYOND 18th July 2024 I’ve just returned from a trip to Jupiter -  no, not the planet - that would take a bit longer! I mean Jupiter Artland outside Edinburgh. It is a 100 acre contemporary sculpture park which was created in 2009 by Nicky and Robert Wilson - a philanthropic husband and wife who had  great visions on a large scale and  were willing to take risks and achieve their ambition to show sculpture in a natural setting. I don’t know why it  has taken me so long to visit this inspiring place (Maybe life and ... Read More »»
PERCY’S ADVENTURES IN PRINTMAKING
PERCY’S ADVENTURES IN PRINTMAKING 25th June 2024 A lot has happened since my last posting: the Kelly exhibition and Words by the Water both at Theatre by the Lake and both enjoyable. The big surprise for me was the bumper sale of Kelly’s original prints particularly the etchings at the exhibition. Apparently etchings are the new best thing.  There is much confusion and controversy about prints in the art world so I’d like to clarify a few things. Many pictures are sold as prints but are basically a commercial printing of an existing painting... Read More »»
THE RETURN OF WORDS BY THE WATER
THE RETURN OF WORDS BY THE WATER 2nd June 2024 Only 3 days to go before WORDS BY THE WATER book festival opens in Keswick and the team roll into town. There has been a long gap – too long – and we need to make it a success for it to continue. It offers a brilliant varied programme. I am looking forward to chairing a few things particularly Blake Morrison, an old friend, who will be talking about his latest book TWO SISTERS which is the book he told me some years ago he would never write. I wonder why he changed his mind – I may find out on W... Read More »»
SCENE AND UNSEEN - THE RESULTS ARE IN.
SCENE AND UNSEEN - THE RESULTS ARE IN. 13th May 2024 The exhibition at Theatre by the Lake was not just enjoyable for all who went but it raised more than fifty thousand pounds for the theatre. (yes, £50k +)  Well done everybody concerned from those who bought a back catalogue or a card to those spending thousands. It was far more than I ever imagined especially the etchings' sales. It was almost a sell out of those we had for the exhibition – we had 2 Isolated Barn left at the final reckoning which didn’t take long! We took orders on those which ... Read More »»