Reality is Not a Picture Postcard

When I was at Art School in the 1960s copying was an anathema. In any case, I was enthralled by the Impressionists including Monet and Cezanne. There was also was a revolution in art education with great encouragement to explore and experiment.

It wasn’t a matter of learning tradition, convention and technique. The nature of what I was exploring was the built-environment of industrial city of Birmingham with a cityscape of Neo-Gothic architecture, a web of canals (bigger than Venice) and umpteen factories and manufacturing plants which I explored by bicycle with a bag of art materials strapped to my back.

I was to realise the same reaction living in Stoke-on-Trent with its myriads of pot banks and bottle kilns but was unable to realise my erstwhile sensations towards the colours and textures of brick and stone, the tones of grime and soot.

However, it was not until 1975, when I settled in my spiritual home of SE London, that was again to work en Plein Air to capture the true nature of the surroundings along the Thames and London’s Buildings.

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