Alex kicked off the month of July by driving down to sunny Cornwall to visit Gallery artist Richard Cook in his studio. This was an incredibly fruitful visit and we are very happy to say we have a brand new collection of oil paintings Richard.
Richard Cook has been exhibiting in major galleries his whole career and has received awards from the British Council and the Arts Council. In 2001 he was given a solo show at Tate St Ives, with a related publication, and a major painting was acquired for the collection in 2006.
Whilst initially influenced by his teacher and mentor Leon Kossoff, with who he shared a studio for 3 years in the early 1970’s, Cook went on to develop his own voice and unique style inspired by the land and seascapes of Cornwall.
We adore these images of Richard's work space.
During the above visit, we are also very honoured to have consigned two beautiful portraits by Richard's late wife Partou Zia.
Partou Zia was a British-Iranian artist and writer. Born in Tehran, she emigrated to England in 1970, where she completed her secondary education at Whitefields school near Hendon, London (1972–78). Zia studied Art History at the University of Warwick (1977–80) and at the Slade School of Fine Art (1986–91). In 2001, she completed a Ph.D. at Falmouth College of Arts and the University of Plymouth. In 1993, she moved to Cornwall where she lived and worked with her husband, until her death from cancer, in March 2008. Tate St Ives honoured her parting by hanging one of her last completed canvases, Forty Nights and Forty Days as a memorial to her, for a month, at the gallery's entrance.
This very same work is now on display at Tate Britain in their contemporary exhibition 'The State We're In', a collection of 24 artworks from the year 2000 to 2024.
Ben Nicholson
Signed NICHOLSON, titled, dated 1972, inscribed for Angela and variously inscribed (on the reverse of the backboard)
framed: 48.5 x 65cm
Ben Nicholson was a seminal figure in the development of modernist art in Britain. By the 1970s, Nicholson had firmly established himself as one of the leading abstract artists of his time.
In the 1970s, Ben Nicholson, in his late 70s, was in a period of reflection and refinement in his artistic practices. Having moved to Switzerland in 1958, he found a new landscape and environment that subtly influenced his work. This drawing was created after the artist moved back to the UK in 1971 and is reminiscent of his style in his later years. Nicholson continued to create paintings, drawings, and reliefs that showcased his masterful control of line, colour and shape.
During this decade, his work showed a mature simplicity and an emphasis on purity of form. Nicholson's abstract compositions often featured interlocking planes and geometric shapes, rendered in a palette of muted tones and whites, which gave his works a timeless, meditative quality. This period was marked by a continuation of his exploration of the tension between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space.
This month we acquired three original oil paintings by the iconic and internationally acclaimed welsh painter Shani Rhys James.
In recent work Rhys James has explored the transience of being, creating images that challenge the cyclical and relentless passage of life. The female figure has become entwined with images of flowers, either in the wallpaper that surrounds them or as part of a still life composition. In Rhys James's paintings these forms take on a life of their own, subverting the traditional 'feminine' arts of still life painting and home decorating.
Rhys James has exhibited continuously throughout her career and won many awards including the prestigious Jerwood Painting Prize in 2003. She was the subject of the BBC’s documentary series ‘What Do Artists Do All Day’ in 2013 and her work is featured in many major collections including the National Museum of Wales, the Arts Council of England and Columbia University in New York. A publication on her work 'The Rivalry of Flowers' was produced in 2013, featuring an essay by critic Edward Lucie-Smith.
Leon Kossoff
From 'Minerva Protects Pax from Mars' by Rubens,
1980 - 1981
Charcoal on paper
40.4 x 50 cm
In 1936, at ten years old, Leon Kossoff paid his first visit to London’s National Gallery. Entranced by the masterpieces on display, these works would become an enduring fascination throughout his career. For over forty years Kossoff created sketches, prints and paintings from the works by Old and Modern Masters such as Poussin, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Veronese, Constable, Cézanne and Degas, re-experiencing and re-imagining them through the act of drawing. The inspiration for this work, Rubens’s monumental painting ‘Minerva Protects Pax from Mars’ of 1629-30, is a jewel in the National Gallery’s collection.
Kossoff created works from Ruben’s ‘Minerva Protects Pax from Mars’ for nearly a decade. This culminated in an oil painting of similar size to Ruben’s in 1981 and a suite of prints between 1988 – 1989. This present drawing is a preparatory sketch for the painting. Drawing is a crucial part of Kossoff’s creative process, and he repeatedly returns to the same subjects to fully familiarise himself with them and enter their world.
The above image is the original Ruben used by Kossoff for his study.
We are thrilled to announce that we have this glorious screenprint by Andy Warhol available in the Gallery. Created in 1982, five years before his untimely death, this print depicts the 80s American rockstar Billy Squier.
The 1980s marked a significant period in Andy Warhol's life, characterised by his continued influence in the art world, his ventures into new media, and his engagement with both high society and the burgeoning downtown art scene.
Warhol remained a central figure in the Pop Art movement, known for his exploration of consumer culture, celebrity, and mass media. In the 1980s, Warhol expanded his repertoire to include television and fashion, producing the television shows "Andy Warhol’s TV" and "Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes."
We look forward to whatever is in store for the Gallery in August!
