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REMINDERS
20th February 2025
Forgive me if I repeat myself but there is so much art on offer at the moment, it’s easy to miss a closing date and regret it. When it’s gone, it’s gone! First up is next Tuesday 25th February. I am giving an illustrated talk about 3 prominent artists – L S LOWRY RA, SHEILA FELL RA AND PERCY KELLY who came together in the fifties and sixties in Maryport and Allonby. It is in the hall of Keswick School and there is plenty of parking. It starts at 7.30 (admission £7.50 on the door. ) *Look...
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COINCIDENCES
10th February 2025
I love coincidences. It’s great when things join up and make sense. There is one in particular which sets my imagination going. I wish I could have been around when 3 of my favourite and most interesting artists met in Cumbria. Each of them have had a solo show at Castlegate House in the past. Yes, it’s L S LOWRY, SHEILA FELL AND PERCY KELLY. They all met a few times in Allonby and Maryport between 1958 – 68. They chose the same subjects but painted and drew them in entirely different ways. F...
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THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO HEAVEN
25th January 2025
THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO HEAVEN Written in Percy Kelly's final report from Carlisle College of Art I won’t be in The Beacon at Whitehaven today. The forecast isn’t good and there is too much to clear up in the garden after the ferocious storm and I guess that many of you will be in the same position. I will definitely be there next Saturday 1st February for my talk THE SWINGING SIXTIES. I am thoroughly enjoying putting the talk together. The decade from 1959 – 1969 was astonishing for PK. He m...
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THE SWINGING SIXTIES In Whitehaven
15th January 2025
INSPIRED BY INDUSTRY A reminder that the exhibition INSPIRED BY INDUSTRY opens next Saturday 18th January at the Beacon in Whitehaven. You will be able to see the BRIAN KELLY COLLECTION of 11 of his father, Percy Kelly’s paintings that he donated to Haig Pit which have never been seen before. Brian Kelly gave them to Haig Pit in 1993 for their planned museum but they were lost for 32 years despite my frustrating search for them. Brian died in 2002 aged 57 so had never seen them hanging in a g...
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WHAT LIES IN STORE
4th January 2025
Things often go a bit flat after all the excitement of Christmas so here’s some cheery good news of things to see and do in the dark days of winter. If you haven’t been to Tullie House to see the Sheila Fell exhibition as yet – don’t miss it. Don’t be put off by all the building work going on inside and out at Tullie and in the shopping precinct in Carlisle. It is child friendly as you see from the photo of my great grandson learning something about art appreciation. Be aware that the muse...
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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...
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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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