By way of record of our time in Yorkshire we find ourselves buying art work again. These are somewhat terrible photos of recent buys. The first four are all Neil Simone, a London artist now living in Whixley just up the road from us, a bit.
This first work is called As Autumn leaves, and is my favourite one to date. It's #7 of 450 prints and we just collected it this week.
This smaller one is called Glass painting and is my favourite one to date, we bought this about a month ago at his studio show. It is an original study in pencil crayon and oils for a final work which in all honesty looked worse than this study as he gave the final a blue background which made it look rather heavy. For both of these, in fact for all his works the detail is amazing and the surrealism beautifully captured.
This Piece is from Neil's trips up to the west coast of Scotland and we can see about three beaches we have visited in this one. We have had this for over a year now and it has pride of place in our front room as it is my favourite one to date. It hangs next to Beatrice the blue cow an acrylic by Caroline Walker and my favourite cow to date. (Blog entry dated 31 July 2009) Anyway I just love the way Niel does the surf spume.
Funny story about this one below, Gail went to a fine art auction bazaar in Harrogate and bid unseen for Tree Route a 1980's Neil Simone print, paid 14 quid. When she went to collect it she found the print, #180/ 475 had been hung in the sun for about 30 years and was almost unrecognisable as a print. Never mind, she also got an original oil painting on board, artist and age unknown and an original Griff watercolour all framed and all for the same 14 quid bid. Result.
As we were going to Niel Simone's next studio showing we decided we would take the old print and let him know of it's sad life and to give it to him as an example of one of his earliest prints and it's obvious life in the sun. Just as a point of interest really, we didn't know if he kept tabs on his numbered prints and may want the sad old guy back. Niel was most amazed to see its condition and we spoke for a while about print technologies and inks before going off to look at his latest works. We bought Glass painting and decided to order As Autumn Leaves and as we were leaving the studio Neil presented us with a replacement print of Tree Route, he had numbered it 180/475 and signed it as a complete replacement of the faded one... Gail was most impressed as this print is the first work that Neil ever decided to create a print of and it has a history now that is very special. As I said the photo's don't do the actual works justice but you get the idea and a bit of why we love meeting artists where ever we go.
Here is the original Griff watercolor Gail got in the job lot at auction,
And this the original old oil on board.
Finally, this is the signed unlimited print by a bloke who does lots of Yorkshire towns whose name I forget but is very popular for his realism, A bit old lady picture for me and not my most favourite to date. Also in the lot Gail bought unseen at Auction though so all in all, result, result and oh well it fills a space on the lounge room wall.
