Our on-line gallery

www.dspearsonshop.co.uk

We've now completed the first-stage of our on-line gallery which makes it much easier to purchase original works by Dave Pearson through the new Dave Pearson Studio website. 

We've selected 120 pieces of work by Dave which are now available for sale directly. They can be paid for on-line by card or via Paypal. Postage and packing is included in the price, and we guarantee to post out within 7 days. Because the purchase is directly with the studio we've been able to keep the prices down. 

Most of the works are on paper and they can be easily and safely posted. The majority are gouaches and include some of the colourful and dynamic works that Dave created alongside his Byzantium work, and which would have informed his large canvases.

The amazing series of large etchings of English Calendar Customs are also available (example below), along with some of the smaller Byzantium canvases and a series of framed gouaches.

To visit the Dave Pearson Web Gallery and Shop simply go to www.dspearsonshop.co.uk .

Belper, Kunst and beyond

We can report that the newly established Dave Pearson Studio organisation is settling in well, and now has its legs comfortably stretched out under the table. 

The first month has been spent reorganising the office on Manchester Road, partly so things are filed in a way that Dave's son Chris can access them, but just as much so that Apna, who share the building with us, have proper desks and storage for their new staff.

We also have our builders in, improving the kitchen space and fixing a hole in the roof that has been staining the ceiling of the upstairs gallery space. 

In terms of showing Dave Pearson's work there's also a lot happening. This Saturday (19th) there's a showing at 7pm of Derek Smith's wonderful 'Dave Pearson: To Byzantium' film at the Kunst Gallery in Belper. An exhibition of a the amazing late series of 'The Day of The Dead' (below) will then be on show at the gallery until 17th June. This will all be happening at the Kunst Gallery, Campbell Street, Belper, Derbyshire DE56 1AP.

While the Belper exhibition is running, we'll be working on getting things ready for the large-scale 'Return to Byzantium' show at the Turnpike Gallery in Leigh, WN7 1EB, which will open on the 21st June and run from 23rd June until 4th August. More about this in our next blog.

DP Trust becomes DP Studio

The Dave Pearson Trust will no longer exist at the end of this month. For reasons that have been documented in detail in this blog, we're voluntarily handing the assets of the Trust - Dave Pearson's paintings - back to Dave's son Chris, in order to avoid a large tax bill. This is not taxation on our earnings (if only) but on the legally necessary 10 year-on assessment of the value of the estate that was left at Dave's death. In other words the result of all our hard work over the past 9 years has been to increase the value of Dave's paintings - and as a result there's a potentially large increase in the death duty payable on his estate. Any Trust has to be re-assessed and pay this every 10 years - or hand the estate back to the benefactor, which is what we're doing. 

We met today to discuss the details. Opening a new bank account; moving standing orders; agreeing on a new lease for the studio...and so on. The new company, which will be managed by Chris Pearson, will be called The Dave Pearson Studio. It will take the place of the Trust, and start operating at the beginning of April 2018. 

Margaret Mytton and I (Bob Frith) will cease to be Trustees, although I will continue to help Chris. Ella Cole will still help out too. By coincidence Ella has nearly completed cataloguing the work in the studio, and this has reached 13,314 pieces of work. Whether she continues to catalogue the few thousand additional pieces at Chris's home will have to be seen.

To reassure our friends, buyers and collectors, it needs to be said that the studio at 54 Manchester Road, Haslingden BB4 5TE will continue to house Dave's work, and it will be open to visitors as before. In fact we plan to open for special exhibitions rather more frequently than before, so on the surface anyway, things will be much the same.