Past Masters exhibition at The Bingley Gallery

A new exhibition at The Bingley Gallery features the work of local artists who are no longer with us and allows us to consider how such ability was nurtured in people for whom art was often fitted into busy working lives.

Also within the gallery, but outside of the exhibition, is a range of work by some of the best contemporary artists in the district, which together highlight the strong visual arts legacy, and its continuity.

Some historic artists followed conventional art careers, often leaving the area of their birth to paint professionally where buyers could more easily be found. Others stayed close to their roots; there’s a few very competent artists from the late 19th and early 20th centuries who still generate respectable sums at auction. Below these come more minor figures, who local art historian Colin Neville has catalogued as the ‘Lesser-Known Artists of the Bradford District’. Some are well-recorded, others’ lives are only sketchily known, but the quality of their art is testament to their talent and productivity, and love of the Yorkshire landscape.

Occasionally, surviving family members have helped raise the profile of some earlier artists. David Foster has, through the press, video and social media, not to mention the issuing of new prints, made his grandfather, Walter C Foster’s bold watercolours more widely known. Walter, born in Bingley in 1887, gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London. Returning to Yorkshire, he taught art in schools before becoming Headmaster at Shipley School of Art. Little of his work seems to have been sold before his untimely death in 1929, aged just 42. and much remained stored in the family’s attic until his grandson, rediscovered it.

Where did local artists, without such opportunities, develop their talents? The level of teaching art in school was unlikely to have been great - as likely to dampen any creativity as nurture it. Few could afford private tuition. For the working man, yet alone woman, one might think that opportunities for developing artistic talents, would have been harder to find.

This is where organisations, such as the Mechanic’s Institutes came in. When Bradford’s was founded in 1832, art was soon offered amongst its subject choices. Keighley’s and Shipley’s Institutes (the latter created by Titus Salt) also feature heavily in our artists’ biographies. Accomplished artists were brought in as teachers, and scholarships offered to promising students. In more recent years, College-based evening classes were also more widely available whilst art clubs provided opportunities for members to exhibit.

Joseph Pighills (1901-84), the son of a wool sorter, left school at 14 to be an apprentice pattern maker. His talent, nurtured by evening classes at Keighley School of art led to a high level of expertise, typically, dramatically atmospheric watercolours of moorland around his Oxenhope home. When ill-health forced his retirement from engineering, painting provided a successful livelihood and not a little fame. Cataract surgery and his enthusiasm allowed him to continue painting into his 80s.

View to Far Intake by Joseph Pighills (Image: Submitted)

An artist who didn’t need to paint for his living was John Sowden (1838-1926). Trained as an architect, he became a wealthy property developer, but maintained a strong interest in art. From having enrolled at evening classes at Bradford Mechanic’s Institute he went on to teach there and become head of its arts section. Sowden’s work includes portraits of local dignitaries and scenery, but he’s best known for his portraits of Bradfordian street characters, now in the possession of Bradford Museums and Galleries.

Percy Monkman (1892-1986), was a busy man, whose art, acting and comic talents, lay outside of his day job, working in a bank. His full life is described in the autobiography written by his grandson, Martin Greenwood, Percy Monkman; An Extraordinary Bradfordian. With retirement, painting became a dominant activity and whilst watercolour views of the Dales predominate, Percy also undertook cityscapes of urban Bradford.

Thorpe Street scene with Man and Dog by Percy Monkman (Image: Submitted)

He seems one of the few who never received any formal training, but three self-declared qualities: fanaticism, dedication and impulsivity, drove him to paint prolifically in all weathers - Percy claimed that he found winter, rain and snowy view more stimulating than traditional summer scenes!

A painting by Arthur McArthur (1827-1892) which turned up in a local auction led to research into the work of this almost forgotten Bradford artist. Born to a weaving family of British origins in Lille, France, he returned to the UK, then came to work in Bradford as a lithographer, while developing skills as a watercolourist, until painting became his full-time career. His Bradford scenes record the narrow streets, inns and other buildings swept away by re-development in the second half of the 19th century.

By contrast, many of Clayton-born John Butterfield’s (1913-97) works concentrate on the little-changing Yorkshire rural landscape, often painted in miniature. He spent much of his career in the wool industry and occasional , less commercial paintings, such as This Was Bradford’s Gold, show the warehouse of his business, with bales of wool awaiting processing. In 1958 he sold the business to concentrate of painting, tuition and running a gallery at Heaton, then Thornton.

This Was Bradford's Gold by John Butterfield (Image: Submitted)

Myriam Burton (1907-1997), a graduate of Lancaster School of Art put her art career on hold whilst raising her family but later, based in Bingley, returned to painting, achieving success at London’s Royal Academy and, more so, at the Paris Salon. Work accepted in Paris was rejected by The Bradford Open! Perhaps her impressionistic style was considered inappropriate for local landscapes, but in time a greater appreciation of her distinctive work was rewarded with local exhibitions.

Haworth Church in oil by Myriam Burton (Image: Submitted)

James Hardaker (1901 – 1991) was a Bingley based artist who, whilst a capable portrait and abstract painter, relied on landscapes as his mainstay, selling them from his own gallery, initially in Myrtle Place, then Park Road in Bingley.

Bingley Market, oil painting by James Hardaker (Image: Submitted)

It is fitting that the current showing of art is taking place just a few yards from his studio at The Bingley Gallery, demonstrating that the tradition of artists in our district continues.

* Past Masters runs at Bingley Gallery until May 21. Visit davidstarleyartist.com/bingley