Throughout 2018 I was talking with the Art Fund about donating a small collection of work by Dave Pearson to a museum or art gallery. The series of drawings were being gifted by a collector who wished to remain anonymous. They were from a series of beautiful graphite drawings that Dave called 'In The Seven Woods', and they were inspired by the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. Here's a selection of the work:
Eventually the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL), based at Reading University, accepted the gift, and they are now on display there.
Today I found a package sent to me from the Art Fund that included a copy of the Art Quarterly which contained this short piece on the gift:
It's good to see Dave's work getting publicity in this way, and interesting that these pieces have ended up in a collection dedicated to the 'life and traditions of the English countryside' which Dave immersed himself in the mid-1970s and 80s when he produced his "Calendar Customs' and 'In The Seven Woods' series.
