20:20 VISION
Date Posted: 21st December 2019
Above; No ordinary robin. This is a Percy Kelly robin .(lino print on card).
Today is the shortest day. Things can only get better from now on – but will they?
It has been a madly busy year – I’m looking forward to a sit down and a good think this Christmas! 2019 began with the Legacy exhibition at Tullie House which finished in February, then rolled on to When Percy met Norman at the Settlement in Maryport which led to work in local schools and the launch of Have a Humbug the children’s interactive art book at Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick. A highlight was opening the alternative Summer Exhibition in Allonby on the hottest day of the year and a full house for the talk about Kelly’s Allonby when I suspect I learned more from the audience than they did from me. Talking of learning, I have also been travelling the north giving lectures on 20th century northern artists – Nicholson, Lowry, Kelly, Fell. Peascod and the wonderful collector and patron of artists Helen Sutherland.
Just writing all that makes me feel tired.
The best of it all though was meeting so many of you. With a BIG birthday approaching (I’m surprised to have survived thus far and still have my own teeth!) I have been selling some of my Kelly’s (and the odd Bennett, Fedden, Nicholson Frink etc) as I have accumulated a lot of art over the last 25 years some of which is stacked in cupboards which is a shame. Art needs to be enjoyed.
Which brings me neatly to the coming year and my latest project – an oil painting by Anne Redpath OBE. who was the first woman to become a member of the all-male Royal Scottish Academy in 1952. Harmony in Red (38 x 28 inches so not small) hung in the tiniest house in Borrowdale for 40 years and then in the store of Keswick museum for 20 years. It’s a fascinating story which I will be telling at Words by the Water in March. (I can feel another book coming on!) I’m then involved with a Bill Peascod exhibition in May celebrating the centenary of his birth in Maryport. More details will unfold next year as things develop as they surely will.
But first I have to survive Christmas and a rather big birthday on NYD. Best wishes to you all – my faithful followers. I love to get your feedback.
Enjoy the lengthening of days from now on until high summer.