The Turnpike, Leigh

The exhibition is going up in readiness for its opening this Thursday evening. Helen Stalker, Matt Retallick and the team at the Turnpike have been as helpful as anyone could have hoped, and already its looking fantastic. 

There's not been much for Ella, Alastair, or myself to do as they have an experienced team hanging the paintings. Other than driving over and unloading yesterday, and then laying out the work as we wanted it, everything else has been done by the gallery. Today, having noted some bad scratches in one or two places, I came back with Dave's restorers kit, and Ella brought her distilled water and baby wipes to clean the few dirty patches. 

The gallery itself is now looking classy, and their refurb has worked really well. In addition Helen has arranged a whole raft of activities that have been inspired by the exhibition. Our friend, the artist Alan Birch has been working with local schools including Moorside Primary School and Bedford High, to create prints inspired by Dave's 'Calendar Customs'. 

The artists from Pen Chant are showing their dance-and-poetry work inspired by Dave Pearson 'Newfangled!' on Friday evening at 7.30pm, and on Saturday 23rd there's a new idea being tried - a community lunch between 12midday and 2pm. There have been a number of community workshops too, including work with Roma children. 

Hearing and seeing all of this going on alongside a show which returns to the material Dave created for the 1994 exhibition has been very inspiring. Although the lighting still has to be put on the canvases, the smaller works still have to be hung, and a final tidy before the gallery opens for Thursday, its already clear that this is going to be a very special event and one that the Studio is proud of being part of.

Dave Pearson: Return to Leigh

Actually it should be Dave Pearson: Return to Byzantium, and it's opening shortly at the Turnpike Gallery in Leigh, Wigan. 

It's a return because most of the work in the exhibition was shown in the same gallery in 1994. But this time we've stripped that show down to its essentials. In other words we're simply exhibiting the large central panels, without the smaller pieces that were originally placed around them. So it's a kind of Byzantium Unplugged.  

The Preview is on Thursday 21st June, 6 - 8pm. After that it's open until August 4th. 

Getting the pieces out from storage and looking at them up close has been fascinating - finding all the little details (above and below) that get overlooked when you're standing back and looking at the large triptychs, most of which are around 4 metres long. 

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.

Goodbye to the Trust; welcome the Studio!

The Dave Pearson Trust closed down at the end of last month, to be replaced by The Dave Pearson Studio. As a result Dave's work is now back in the hands of his son Chris. I'll continue to run things, and Ella will carry on archiving and helping support our work. 

So, it's a time of major change for us, and the office here in the studio is being set up to work more effectively for The DP Studio,as well as for Apna (who shares the premises) and for me as landlord (I'll be using it as a base too). We've already put in faster wifi and a more ethical power supply. Our email remains the same though, dptrust54@gmail.com. 

In the next few months we'll be hanging a new exhibition of a selection of Dave's self-portraits in our gallery on the top floor. We'll be sending out invites shortly for the opening. We're also getting our builders in to improve the kitchen area, (and sort out the leaking roof). Then we'll be moving some of the larger Byzantium pictures to the Turnpike Gallery in Leigh for a major exhibition opening on the 21st June. 

Coincidence

Two key aspects of our work are now coming to their conclusion. By coincidence the process of cataloguing all of the artwork held at Dave Pearson's studio is coming to its end just as the Dave Pearson Trust itself is being wound up and made into a new organisation. 

Ella Cole has moved down to the ground floor of the studio and is now cataloguing the large paintings, currently working on item number 13260. After this, final, room has been completed, Ella will move onto the work that is stored in Chris Pearson's house, just down the road from here. It's hard to be certain but that possibly houses another 2,000 or so drawings and paintings. 

The Trust itself is going to be wound up at the end of the current financial year. If you've read the earlier blog posts you'll remember that this has been forced on us because of estate duty issues, and if we didn't take this course of action the Trust would be facing a huge tax bill on its tenth anniversary. Instead the whole of the work that makes up the estate will be handed back to Chris Pearson, and he will manage it himself, although we (Bob, Ella) are planning to continue to offer him the same type of support that we currently provide to the Trust.

Meanwhile we're also collecting together work for the exhibition planned to open on 12th January 2018 at Leicester Grammar school, which will take a look at the way that Dave Pearson used the image of trees in his Byzantium paintings. This will then be followed by another large exhibition at the Turnpike Gallery, Leigh, Manchester between June and August 2018, when parts of the Byzantium series that have a particular relevance to Manchester will be shown.

Exhibitions

For the past few months I've been able to spend more time working with Ella Cole at Dave Pearson's old studio, which is where the Dave Pearson Trust is based. Between us we've been following up our contacts with the intention of putting together some exhibitions of Dave's work. This is after a period of 2 or 3 years in which exhibitions of the work have been limited. 

During the past couple of weeks our efforts appear to finally be having an affect. We're now finalising dates for medium and large scale shows at the Turnpike in Leigh, and Leicester Grammar School, and with smaller shows at Dean Clough in Halifax, along with our friends at the Colourfield Gallery and According to McGee (York) showing pieces. Plus there's the enquiry from Zillah Bell, one of the major galleries specialising in prints (see previous blog). Dean Clough have intimated that they may well consider a larger-scale show at some time in the future.  

This is good news, and shows that even a relatively small effort on our behalf can result in real interest in Dave's work being revived. On Monday this week we hosted a coach load of visitors from Merseyside Arts Fund and, miraculously, squeezed 40 visitors into the studio. Everyone enjoyed the visit, and we even made a sale...plus the promise from others to return for a closer look. 

Modern Masters

The holiday period is coming to a close and both Ella and I will be back to regular work at the Dave Pearson Trust. 

No apologies for yet another post focusing (above) on the reprints by Alan Birch of some of Dave's spectacular 'Calendar Custom' prints. 

News update - the York exhibition at the According to McGee gallery is due to open on Saturday 10th September at 12pm. This is an opening of the group of exhibitions themed as 'Modern Masters' and introduces a sample of works by the artists who will be represented later in the series - so don't expect a Dave Pearson exhibition, but it will include a few of his works, including at least one of the new prints. The gallery is in the centre of York, at 8 Tower Street, YO1 9SA - opposite Cliffords Tower. 

I've a meeting at the Turnpike Gallery in a week or so, and the idea of holding a big exhibition at this gallery (which Dave first exhibited in almost 25 years ago) looks as if it's coming closer  to fruition. 

Summer news..

Summer mode and the background heating at the studio can be turned off! Ella and I take our early holidays, and builders are called in to fix the badly slipping guttering at the back of 54 Manchester Road. 

Alongside this our plans are moving along - we're conscious that we now have added treasure in the form of the newly printed etching and drypoint plates that Alan Birch has been working on. Over the next few months I'll arrange to have a selection of these framed so we can present them as well as possible. Ella has already shown a selection of the proofs to the Goldmark Gallery and they are interested enough to follow this up, potentially with a visit to the studio.

Similarly, through contacts with Manchester Museums & Galleries, we've also had interest from the Turnpike in Leigh about mounting an exhibition. It's a big space and Dave showed his Byzantium work there in, I think, 1992. I remember that exhibition well, an enormously powerful show which we have a good photographic record of. The Turnpike has recently re-opened and it would be wonderful to have a second show there, 25 years later.

The photos above are taken from one of the drypoint plates resurrected by Alan Birch - this one is an unusual piece, and showing some of these prints is another thing we're working on. The According to McGee Gallery in York have been back in touch, about showing some work in the near future. Perhaps some of these are a possibility? In any case it looks as if the next few years could see a stirring of exhibition activity...watch this space. 

Etchings and drypoints brought back to life...

Today I went along with Ella Cole to Prospect Studios in Waterfoot to see the finished set of prints that master-printer Alan Birch had produced from Dave Pearson's old etching and drypoint plates. 

Alan has resurrected 29 large plates, mainly from the 'Calendar Customs' series that Dave did throughout the 1970s, and printed two of each one beautifully on good quality paper. They are truly stunning - above are details of a couple, and a photo of Ella and Alan going through the finished prints for my benefit. 

Next week Alan will bring them among to the Dave Pearson Trust in Haslingden, and we'll choose a selection to have framed. Then we'll need to think about exhibiting them. Last week I met Wendy Gallagher from the Whitworth Art Gallery, and she suggested a number of different options, including the Turnpike Gallery in Leigh - which despite being out of the city centre is a beautiful space and, interestingly, Dave chose to show his Byzantium paintings there in 1992 - so it would be a coming home of sorts.