The Plough Jags of Burringham

From time to time we receive queries about the provenance of a Dave Pearson work that has found its way into someones' possession. 

These are most frequently works not by 'our' Dave Pearson at all. There are one or two other artists out there going by the same name. Fortunately their work is immediately recognisable as being by a different artist. 

But yesterday I received a query about a print, and the sender sent me several photographs of it:

Interestingly it was signed, as an artists proof, by Dave, and dated 1980. It also had a title 'The Plough Jags of Burringham'. This information has been very helpful as we've not had an accurate date until now as to when Dave made the series of prints based on English Calendar Customs. Neither did we know exactly what the subject was. But with a little research I've found that 'The Plough Jags' are a folk group of mummers from the East Midlands, and Dave would probably have found a photograph of them during his researches into calendar customs. 

So we're been able to update our own records, and include this information on the Dave Pearson on-line shop, where freshly printed copies of the etching are currently available:

It's also given us further clues about a series of very large pastel drawings made by Dave Pearson. We knew that these were of English folk groups and customs, but were less certain as to their date. It means that almost certainly they were also done sometime around 1980:

The pack...

I visited the studio in Haslingden an hour or so ago where Julian and Jackie, helped by Andre and Mariana, our Portuguese theatre students here on placement, were busy wrapping everything in sight in bubble-wrap. Tomorrow Julian and Chris Pearson load the truck and then Julian drives down to Bermondsey with the exhibition.  

Mick Bateman has emailed to say that everything is in place at the Project to receive the work, and when Margaret arrives on the 10th the hang will begin. Meantime, I'm off for a short break in Cascais (where Andre and Mariana are at theatre school). Mick has also listed the publicity that Crisis have been undertaking, in addition to my own efforts. This is all very encouraging and the fact that the Bermondsey Project is also expecting to launch its own website in a few days time is also a boost to our effort to publicise the show.

Not especially related to anything current are the three very tiny oil paintings of Mummers done by Dave in the 1970s when he was researching English calendar customs. I really like these little paintings, and they show a very different side to Dave's work than the pieces we'll be showing in Bermondsey.