ART TALK
Your say on art, artists and related topics
The media loves to bluster on about conceptual art and all the various offshoots, especially if it's loud and shocking. But what about all the exceptional artists who are quietly homing their skills in spite of the lack of media attention.
Here, in a small way, we can put the story right. We can focus on a number of artists who are doing important works and past artists who have been ignored and underrated.
Here are some of my picks on the right.
Rob Bealby
Why not have your say? Mick did
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a New Realism (American Realism) painter born 1882 in New York.
A little known fact is that one of his most famous paintings House by the Railroad (1925) inspired Alfred Hitchcock's house in Psycho (1960).
Hopper's work explores loneliness and isolation depicting everyday scenes and transforming them from the mundane, with a masterful use of light and shadow, to create dramatic effects, promoting a feeling of emptiness.
His paintings show excellent draughtsmanship, incorporating geometric forms to create a sense of order. He often portrayed a solitary figure in ordinary settings, conveying a sense of loneliness to good effect.
He visited London and Paris in 1906-1907.
Hopper Died of natural causes on May 15 1967 in New York.
A retrospective of his paintings was held at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Tate Liverpool in (2024) and was one of the Tate’s most successful exhibitions.
Mick Thomas
Edward Hopper Portrait
House by the Railroad 1925
Nighthawks Edward Hopper
Automat 1927 Edward Hopper
John Trickett
We are very fortunate to have in our own area, local artist John Trickett. He was born in Sheffield in 1953 and now resides in Nottinghamshire, however, he spent his early life in Cleethorpes where Sally Mitchell discovered him.
On leaving school he trained to be an accountant, but an offer to play professional football for Torquay was too much of a temptation to ignore.
Whilst in Torquay John began to paint portraits, seascapes and landscapes, but was not earning a living, so he returned to his home town and took a job as a fork lift truck driver, painting in his spare time.
He had a very successful exhibition in the local library, which encouraged him to find an outlet for his work. Seeing an advertisement in a magazine, John contacted Sally Mitchell and travelled to meet her with a couple of his paintings, which so impressed Sally that one of the longest partnerships in the art world was born.
Totally self-taught and with no formal training, John has established himself as, according to ‘Shooting Times’, the finest Labrador painter in England.
Franklin Mint (renowned producer of limited edition collectibles) of America, published several of his paintings on limited edition plates and declared that he was in fact one of the finest painters of Labradors in the world.
He was silver in the International Animal Painters competition in France 1992. The picture was entered without his knowledge by Sally Mitchell.
John has since exhibited all over the world and has had limited editions printed of his work.
His talent for natural colour, composition and atmosphere is not confined solely to the depiction of Labradors, but includes hunting scenes with dogs, deer and birds and other aspects of country life.
Original examples of his work can be seen at Sally Mitchell Fine Arts in Tuxford.
Mick Thomas
Photo by Rob Bealby