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PETER BROOK RBA (1927 – 2009)
Peter Brook was born in the winter of 1927 in the Pennine village of Scholes near the 'summer wine' countyof Holmfirth. His parents were farmers initially and Peter grew up among milk carts, helping with thehaymaking and drinking ginger beer made by his grandmother. Both winter and the Pennines wouldcontinue to play a large part in this Yorkshire painter’s life.Peter was educated at Barnsley Grammar School before moving on to teacher training at GoldsmithsCollege, part of London University, where he visited exhibitions and galleries whilst also attending eveningclasses in life drawing. After two years in the RAF Peter returned to Yorkshire where he became a teacher inRastrick, near Brighouse, West Yorkshire. There he married Molly.In Brighouse he found everything he needed to test his skills and start his life in art: its factories, stone builthouses, colours, shapes and people. Initially he used thick paints, but this didn't give him the effect hewanted. This came when he began to mix very fine sandstone from a nearby quarry into the paint for thebuildings, which gave them more substance and more power and was contrasted with his smooth sky lineswhich might be made using rags, rollers or his fingers.In 1960 Peter had his first one man exhibition at the Wakefield City Art Gallery. It was a success and wasfavourably reviewed in The Times.By 1962 Peter had been elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists. Now he was teaching atSowerby Bridge Grammar School, building up a successful art department, taking pupils out to draw thesurrounding country: 'if you want a subject, look around you'.Two very successful exhibitions in the Queens Square Art Gallery, Leeds in the mid sixties were followedby another show at the University of York in 1968.Peter would say that 'All the time there have been places that caught my imagination, places that I feel verystrongly about that I've had to paint'.However, like other great artists Peter wasn't about to stand still and continue to paint the same images in thesame style. Having discovered a set of old victorian photographs of Yorkshire he was inspired by thepossibilities these offered. He loved the print-like quality, a process that interested him. Thick paint wasreplaced by much thinner paint with smooth finishes but the paintings had great depth and interest.For Peter the title is very much an important part of the painting, adding poetry and humour to the paintingswhilst also making the observer think, as the title may not always be obvious when first looking at thepainting.Agnews, the London art dealers, began to represent Peter and their first two shows of his work resulted inover 100 paintings being sold. Further shows in America and Australia followed. In 1974 he wascommissioned to design the Oxford University Almanac.Peter's paintings continue to show the beauty and vastness of the Yorkshire landscape and of the destructionof the Pennine life that once was. They show Peter and his faithful dog walking over the land, throughwoods or towns in search of new scenes or a cup of tea and perhaps being watched by the sheep. Sometimeswe see Peter standing back and looking at the picture that the viewer is also observing, so we get a chance tosee what Peter sees.Peter Brook is the Pennine landscape artist from Yorkshire who now and again will travel abroad to far offplaces like Cornwall, Lancashire and Scotland. Wherever he goes he captures the history, starkness, beautyand humour of the areas he paints and makes the viewer want to be there.Peters work was collected far and wide and celebrities such as Tom Courtenay, Tommy Steele, RodneyBewes, Hannah Gordon and the late James Mason all collected his work. In 2009 the Tate Gallery includedPeters work in their desk diary, and his work will feature in the 2011 edition also, alongside manyluminaries of the art world, a measure of Peters true standing.Sadly Peter passed away in November 2009, leaving a legacy that the art world will not forget. Mike Baggs, his publisher, said “Peter will be greatly missed by all who knew him, and the art world haslost a wonderful talent. Peter was known and loved by many and those who met him were always charmedby his quiet modesty, his twinkling humour and his genuine pleasure in knowing his work was so widelyadmired. Peter was a real character and would often say, with a twinkle in his eye, that anywhere outsideYorkshire was ‘going abroad’. I once asked him why he had never travelled more and gone to see othercountries and he said he had never flown as ‘they won’t let me take the dog’!! There is one comment thatwill always live with me, that seemed to sum Peter up, in many ways. He once said “I’ve always paintedwhat I liked. Luckily most of the time other have people have liked it too”I will miss Peter greatly but I still get to see him every day, in his paintings, walking across his belovedmoors, w by his side” |