Another busy time

Margaret and I are both very busy with our jobs at present - Margaret with her lecturing on the Foundation Course at MMU, and myself working on a new production at Horse + Bamboo Theatre. But work for the Trust continues to move on, and in the past week we've discovered that The Return, the exhibition at The House of the Nobleman in Regents Park, London is going to remain open, and so Dave Pearson's pieces in the show will stay, for now, in this impressive setting. 

Next weekend we're expecting a visit from Edward Lucie-Smith, and a contact in London who is interested in seeing Dave's work in its Rossendale setting - at his old studio, now refurbished, in Haslingden. So I met with Julian and Jackie from the See Gallery to look at how we might fill the holes on the walls of the studio. At the moment, following the number of sales from the Reveal Open Studio weekend, there are rather a lot of these. Sales of work continue too, and Julian has had buyers visiting last weekend - and another yesterday. 

It's certainly an interesting time for the Trust. The planned exhibition in Bermondsey, London has been moved forward to May 2012; the idea of a major show at Dean Clough has also moved forward a step with a visit to the studio having been arranged, through Margaret, with the curators. Because of our own work commitments, it's incredibly valuable to have Julian and Jackie able to support the Trust in this way; without them a lot of opportunities to continue to develop Dave's reputation would be lost.

Conservation issues

The Return, the exhibition at The House of the Nobleman finishes today. It will be interesting to know what interest there has been in Dave Pearson's work as a result. Being in London none of us have been able to travel down to see it, but we're told by a few friends and acquaintances who have made the journey, that the exhibition looks 'stunning'. 

Last weekend, the three members of the Trust met with Pauline Birtwell, an expert on preserving works on paper, who works for Lancashire Conservation Studios in Preston. Pauline lives locally and kindly gave up part of her weekend to advise us as to the storage and conservation issues we face - especially of the vulnerable works on paper. 

The issues are potentially daunting, but Pauline advised us to take it 'bit by bit'. Our first steps will be to buy acid free tissue paper to separate out the individual works on paper, and to buy special plastic sheeting to separate the stacked up piles of paintings. We'll need to start handling the paper works wearing gloves, and vulnerable pieces will need to be removed from the drawers and placed in their own separate boxes to await treatment. 

The main issue for us, apart from the time we'll need to do this, is where do we find the additional storage room that this will ultimately require? At present the plan-chests we have may well have 100 sheets in each drawer, and the weight of these will itself contribute to the deterioration of the work. Pauline suggested looking into a Heritage Lottery Grant in order to pay both for the resources, but also for trained conservers, to undertake this work. 

Split Tree Warriors - and another busy week

We recently sold four of the 'outliers' from Byzantium - meaning the secondary panels that Dave designed to hang round the main panels of the Byzantium series, usually related to the architecture of the gallery spaces in which he was showing that wonderful series. Although the central Byzantium pieces are not currently for sale the outlying panels are, and those above were purchased recently. These are designed for 'The Split Tree', and so they are known as 'The Split Tree Warriors'. The buyer kindly sent us a photograph of them in situ at their new home (above); below is a photo he took when they were hanging at the See Gallery. 

Meanwhile The House of the Nobleman exhibition has opened in London; Margaret and I are talking with Edward Lucie-Smith about a possible new date for the exhibition in Bermondsey and I've finally managed to move the Artlook software to a dedicated laptop with the help and support of Charles Davies of Artlook. 

Small developments

Untypically the three of us who make up the Trust met once again this week. This time to sort out a satisfactory arrangement with Julian Williams and Jackie Taylor (who together make up the See Gallery) with regard to the increasing amount of work they are doing for us - dealing with sales of work; framing and delivering paintings to buyers, and generally doing a lot of the house-keeping jobs that we don't have time for. Although Margaret and I both have busy full-time jobs, we're also closely involved with Trust business on a day-to-day basis but the simple fact is that the amount of work has increased recently. In part this is to do with interest generated by the film, but also the success of the Reveal Open Studio weekend, and our realisation that we now need to concern ourselves with protecting the most vulnerable work, build on the interest following the film, and continue to catalogue some of the key pieces of work. 

One of these key series is, naturally, the truly awesome Byzantium series of paintings. One of which, Bridge Street, is shown above. Made up of two panels - like most of Byzantium its a group of panels - it's nearly 2.5 metres high by over 2.75 metres width. Now, with Margaret Mytton having photographed the series, I've been able to bring these images together with the measurements and finally add them to the catalogue of work.  

'The Return'

"Following on from the success of last year’s ‘The House of the Nobleman’ art exhibition, curator Victoria Golembiovskaya is pleased to announce her second installment in the series, ‘The Return’, opening 14th-23rd October 2011 at Boswall House, a magnificent 15,000 sq. ft. Grade I listed Regency mansion at 2 Cornwall Terrace, overlooking Regent’s Park and the nearby activity of Frieze Art Fair.

"One of the largest and most significant privately sponsored art exhibitions held during the Frieze Art Fair, ‘The Return’ explores ideas of the sacred in art, design and contemporary thought, exhibiting rare and previously unseen works from the most prestigious international collections alongside today’s most notable artists and designers.  Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, Zaha Hadid, Damien Hirst, Claude Monet and Yves Klein are just a few amongst the many represented."


Above is part of the press release about the exhibition at the 'House of the Nobleman' in London. We have been able to include several pieces by Dave Pearson in the exhibition - two are shown above. Margaret Mytton has also written the catalogue entry, part of which is below:

Dave Pearson’s prolific output rivals that of any of the 20^th century masters, yet it is only now, 3 years since his death, that his work is becoming known. Pearson was a passionate, intuitive artist whose approach was always deeply personal, yet because of the directness, honesty and intensity of his perceptions, his work always speaks to the human condition.

The work in the exhibition was produced towards the end of Pearson’s life, when he was scrutinising his own mortality, both by dissecting the moments of his own experience, and by reflecting on the thoughts of philosophers, poets and others. Paralleling the clash of thoughts and feelings, the work is a collage of photographic, drawn and painted imagery, very often involving self-portraits, which visualise but cannot fix the fleeting moment.