Portraits uncovered

I had an interesting email last week from a Tony Lane, from Wales. Tony sent along photographs of two portraits he bought in a mixed exhibition in Liverpool. He remembers it as being in the late 80s or early 90s. He pointed out that he had no intention of selling them, but simply thought we would be interested. 

They are lovely paintings - quite small, roughly 10" square. I mentioned that I thought they might be self-portraits, as they fit in with other pieces we have that include similar paintings that clearly are self-portraits. Tony instead thought they had similarities with the early (1960s) Van Gogh work. They clearly are rather later than that, and would probably have been painted shortly before the exhibition in which Tony bought them. I would say that they were self-portraits, but not in the sense that Dave would have sat in front of a mirror to paint them. From the mid 80s and onwards he began a series of paintings with autobiographical themes and I think these might well fit in with those works. 

Thank you, Tony...and if anyone else has  work by Dave Pearson please let the Trust know so we can add them to the catalogue.

A big job...

Ella Cole, Kay Kennedy, Sean Frith and Graham Breakwell spent the day with me re-organising Dave's studio in order to return to the original idea of having one room dedicated to showing work, a mini-gallery - as against every single room in the 7 room space being used as storage. 

Given the vast amount of work at the studio this is no simple job, and at several points today I thought we might have to abandon the task. But in the event we managed it, although the rest of the three-storey studio is now totally full with piles and racks of paintings. Two examples below of large oil paintings we uncovered in the process: 

Dave in Gold

I've had an email from Robin Morley and Jane Short. Robin and Jane are old friends, and last time they visited I took them to visit Dave Pearson's studio.  They sent  me some pictures this morning of the Goldsmiths' Review, from the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, of whom Jane is a member; she's an extremely accomplished gold- and silver-smith.  

The Goldsmiths' Review recently commissioned Jane to make a new piece - and here it is on the front cover of their annual report. The piece is inspired by her visit to and showing her Dave Pearson's paintings and drawings. She loved the intense colour and texture of the mark making which suits her use if colour and engraving. The piece is called 'Colour Junction'...and what a wonderful tribute!

Another hoard...

I've mentioned many times in this blog that Ella Cole spends two days each week cataloguing the collection of work left by Dave Pearson. In his three storey studio she started work on the top floor, and after almost two years has catalogued over 9000 pieces - all on the upper level. We thought that work on this top floor was almost completed, but late in the day discovered a hoard of a dozen or so large boxes of work - a lot of it early work, from Dave's student years. 

This week Ella open a new box, and discovered 300 pieces of work in it. It's particularly interesting - small experimental coloured sketches and trial pieces, with a dozen or thereabouts on each page. Above is a small selection of these from the corner of one such sheet. 

One of the fascinating things about these pieces is how assured they are for such a young artist (Dave must have been in his 20s) but also how so much about them prefigures the forms and approach of the later work around the Byzantium period of the 1990s. 

Hot off the press

Ella Cole, who works as the archivist at the Trust carefully cataloguing Dave's work, invited Alan Birch to come over today to the studio to take a look at the etching and drypoint plates that have been salvaged from the work left on Dave's death. 

Alan is a superb print-maker and teacher himself, well known locally for his wryly witty print-making. Ella wanted to find out if Alan would be interested in resurrecting any of Dave's plates to make some new editions.

Dave made a lot prints, especially during the 1960s and 70s but, rather typically, once he had taken a proof or two he moved on to the next thing. So although we have a number of prints in the collection they are mostly scrappy and damaged. Dave never got into the habit of running an edition from his plates, or even taken real care of the prints he made.

We wondered if Alan felt it would be possible to make new editions from any of the surviving plates, and if so, was it worth it and would he be interested in helping us. 

In the end Alan and Ella found around 50 plates, many very large, that Alan felt would be worth resurrecting:

Some of  the plates were done using an unusual technique, possibly invented by Dave, of gluing metal onto metal to create 'relief prints'. I remember that the print technicians at Manchester Art College hated these as they easily damaged the expensive felt blankets used in the etching process:

There are also some lovely large steel plates that should make really great prints. Alan offered to help with all of this but we could see that it's a big job, that will probably take a good number of weeks' work to complete. Funds will need to be raised to get this done, but we all felt the results could be very special indeed, and we should start the process of getting art galleries with a special interest in print involved with the project.

Astronaut with a one inch hole

Thanks to Boo Gilbraith I was sent the above picture with the story that this oil painting by Dave Pearson, clearly from the Astronaut series of 1960, was sold for £320 last week at an auction at Cheffins in Cambridge.

£320 might seem like a major bargain, and it is of course, but the painting was (to quote the catalogue) 'found in a barn and had a one inch hole in it and was in a dirty and distressed condition. Needs a proper frame'. 

Apparently it is signed on the reverse 'D. Pearson/Rome and Abbey in Painting' - Dave's submission for the Rome and Abbey Scholarship.

So, a fascinating story and thank you, Boo. I wonder what the events were that led to an early student work by Dave Pearson ending up in a barn?

Early fanciful drawings

Tuesday is the day I try and overlap with Ella at the studio in Haslingden. So today we met up and, among other things, discussed where she was in cataloguing the work left by Dave. 

Ella has reached number 9050 in the catalogue. She is currently investigating the contents of the dozen or so red plastic folders stored in the roof mezzanine space. These contain a wide range of work, mostly from Dave's early period. The batch she is in the process of cataloguing are gouache, pen and ink works on paper and I would guess from the early 1960s, when Dave was in his mid 20s and studying at college. 

They're an odd mixture; Ella felt that it looks like Dave is illustrating a story of some kind. There are lots of monsters, and hillsides with steps cut into them, so it's mainly rather fanciful subject matter, and I suppose these drawings look forward to the late Bestiary work. Altogether, they are a collection of very interesting early pieces.