Found in a Shoebox

It was on top of the wardrobe in the spare room. It was covered in dust. The artist Percy Kelly had given it to her for safe keeping in 1983. He died alone in Norfolk ten years later. She had forgotten about it until I turned up asking questions because I was writing his biography.

The lid was removed in a cloud of dust to reveal shopping lists, addresses, recipes for marmalade and receipts for building materials - and an exquisite collection of small paintings hiding among the other things; The colours are bright and fresh and the subjects are landscapes of Cumbria where he lived for 50 years of his life, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and Norfolk.

This is real treasure and forms part of a new exhibition opening at the gallery on Friday 1st April called Fifty Little Gems. They are all shown on the web site. E-mail us for a price list.

This is not my first find in my last few months of research but it is the biggest and most surprising (so far!). Percy lost a lot of his precious work in his first divorce in 1970 so when he was going through his second divorce in 1983 he was paranoid about losing any more.

He parcelled up small collections and gave them to friends to keep for him and promptly forgot about some of them - and so did the friends. He was poor and ill and suffering from depression. He gave a similar box to his elder sister Sally who died in Workington just before he did in 1993 but this has never been found. It was probably destroyed in the house clearance.

Added together with my other recent finds I realised I had more than 50 of these little gems which would make a superb exhibition. There is a 50 page catalogue available in which each is illustrated. (£10)

We are having an evening viewing on Thursday 31st March 6.00 - 8.00 to which you are invited. The exhibition opens to the public at 10.30 next day - Friday 1st April. Nothing will be sold before then.

To make it fair we will accept sales by e mail and telephone as well as personal callers. We know there are collectors coming from Moscow, Norway, Edinburgh and London. Kelly has now grown way beyond his native Cumbria. After his exhibitions in London as well as at Castlegate House his reputation is now firmly set as a 20th Century British artist of some importance.

Maybe there are more little gems waiting to be discovered.

The biography will be published towards the end of this year - unless I find a lot more material, letters and people who knew him. Each discovery leads on to more. There is no end to this genius of an artist.

Come and see this breathtaking exhibition. Open Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays 10.30 - 5.00

The Lamb-eth Walk

Orange is the 'in' fashion colour this season filling the international cat walks and the like of Top Shop and New Look. We must have the most on-trend lambs in the country. Our local farmer has togged up the new-borns in little orange jackets and they are running about in the sunshine cheering everybody up.

The Literature festival is over. It was a good one full of stimulating ideas on literature, art, politics, philosophy and travel.

Our Curator's Choice exhibition has been enthusiastically applauded with plenty of red spots both at the theatre in The Friends' Gallery and at Castlegate House. This continues in both places until 28th March. Don't miss it.

My talk The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Gallery went down well and the strap line in the Keswick Reminder (our very own tabloid newspaper) was Anyone can run a gallery says Chris Wadsworth.

There you go - you know what to do!

Excitement is building for Percy Kelly's 50 little gems with catalogues winging their way across the world. We will send one to you post free for £10.

Curator's Choice

It is pure self indulgence - to hang an exhibition of all my favourite artists.

Angie and I had a great time yesterday hanging the gallery and I'm now off to Theatre by the Lake in Keswick to hang the rest there. It is proving to be a busy week.

The gallery is now back to Friday, Saturday, Monday opening after the winter break. Next week we are open Tuesday and Wednesday as well because of the Literary Festival.

This attracts a huge crowd of arts lovers who take a break from the talks for a walk by the Lake, in the town or a trip to the gallery. The Friends' Gallery at the theatre is open every day 9.00 - 21.00.

We have hung Blackadder and Rae, Kelly and Fell, Nicholson and Kyffin Williams and many more. Most of the works on show are for sale - there are just one or two I can't bear to part with.

For those of you within range, don't forget my talk A hitch hiker's guide to the gallery on Saturday at 2-15 at the theatre. You will find out how a commercial gallery works and sometimes how it doesn't.

I walked into this by chance 25 years ago and have 'hitch hiked' my way through with the help of artists, clients, friends and family and my worthy assistants.

Have a look at the web site and enjoy.

Chris

CHOICES

We'll be hanging the Curator's Choice exhibition next week and I am having a difficult time deciding what to choose being the curator of the title. Wonder who thought that one up then!
In 24 years I have seen thousands of paintings and hundreds of artists so it is hard to narrow it down. The Winifred Nicholson Lily of the valley at St Bees is very special. It is the Isle of man in the distance.
Of course I will include Percy Kelly possibly my favourite artist of all time and Sheila Fell who was born near by. Eliza andrewes was a great and beautiful elegant friend who died in 2009 and must be included and Karen Wallbank - now famous as The farmer's wife as well as The Bennetts (Michael and June) who have been with me from the very beginning - always loyal and supportive, and Marie Scott whose work has changed the course of my life and Mary Fedden a wonderful friend from my Bristol days and .......
Oh this is turning into a list. You will have to wait and see what goes up. Half the exhibition will be at Theatre by the Lake Keswick and the rest at Castlegate House. - only ten miles apart so you can get to both. It runs from 4th - 28th March in both venues. The theatre is open daily 9.00 - 9.00 and Castlegate House open Fridays Saturdays and Mondays. In addition we are opening extra days during the Literary Festival - 4 - 13th March. See our web site for details www.castlegatehouse.co.uk

Earthbound Magic

In 1988 I wrote a letter to artist Percy Kelly asking if he would have an exhibition at Castlegate House. His vehement refusal arrived by return on a sheet of paper with a lovely drawing on it. There was no way he was going to have an exhibition anywhere he wrote but he added that he did want to be famous after his death. funny that- most artists are desperate for fame in their lifetimes. But then PK was no ordinary artist. So I took up the baton determined to promote him after he had departed this world.
He died 15 years ago and I have at last delivered!
Last Tuesday, in a large gallery room, thick with the scent of flowers, I watched red spot after red spot appear on his paintings. This was in Messums Gallery in Cork Street London. Percy had made it!
Melvyn Bragg was an early visitor, Rosanna of the Purple House in Newlands, a couple who had queued outside my gallery all night in 1998 to buy a Kelly, a director of Sekers Silk who had encouraged him in the sixties and many many more crowded into the room.
On Monday17th an article in The Spectator headed MORE REAL ART PLEASE written by art critic Andrew Lambirth praised Percy's work and lauded the exhibition.
I have no hesitation in recommending the work of Percy Kelly (1918–93). Kelly was a strange and somewhat tortured man who also happened to be a brilliant draughtsman. Not many people in his lifetime knew this because he refused to exhibit or sell his work, and used to hide it away if even an admiring visitor (such as L.S. Lowry) came to call; he was convinced that Lowry would steal his ideas. Born in Workington, Cumberland, Kelly managed to exile himself from his beloved home-county — partly through a temperamental inability to earn money — first to Pembrokeshire and finally to Norfolk. The best of Kelly’s output is the grand series of powerfully mesmeric charcoal drawings he made in the late-1950s, mostly of landscape. They bear comparison with the cream of Sheila Fell’s work (which he knew and admired), but have a solidity and conviction, an earthbound magic, which is all his own.
He also got half a page in the Eastern Daily Press. Ian Collins wrote

Kelly's exquisite drawings and paintings soar above his muddle and trauma of his life in a final note of triumph
Hey - this is not the end - the best is yet to come!

Percy goes to London

Percy Kelly was a chaotic, sexually confused transvestite postman who could paint and draw like an angel (can angels draw I ask myself?). He died in 1993 aged 76 in abject poverty in a Norfolk cottage stuffed with paintings - his life's work.
He was very retentive about his work, hated anyone seeing or touching it. If he sold a piece because he had no alternative - he would often ask for it back later. (don't think that one worked very often!)
After he died intestate in 1993 I managed to secure the estate and get the work brought back to his beloved county Cumberland (and there's a whole other story!). Since then I have promoted his work constantly, staged seven exhibitions at Castlegate House, had big queues outside before a show and watched people fall in love with the work. I am always thankful to survive an opening without being beaten up because feelings run high. Gradually his name has become known and his work respected and in demand. I am currently writing his biography which is all-absorbing. I am a woman obsessed!
On November 19th 2009 London gallery owners, David Messum and Carol Tee came up to Cockermouth to see us and we had lunch in the Trout Hotel which had just been awarded 4* and discussed a possible future joint exhibition. The following day the hotel was under water. The Derwent had burst its banks and flooded the town. Residents had been lifted out into lifeboats in their jamas and the bar and dining room where we had been sitting were destroyed. It took more than 6 months and several million pounds to put it back together again in business.
Messums were distressed to hear the news and immediately offered us the gallery in January 2010 for Percy Kelly, Sheila Fell and farmer's wife Karen Wallbank. We accepted gratefully. Messums is situated in Cork Street the epicentre of 20th Century Art directly behind the Royal Academy in London.
The star of the show was Kelly and I was delighted to be invited back to set up a Kellysolo show there this January. So nect Tuesday, opening night, we are off to London on the train to once again unleash Percy on London. Messums have produced a beautiful catalogue and I have accompanied the illustrations with an extended essay on the art and life of Percy Kelly. We are meeting up with old friends, London based clients and will have 5 fun packed days in the capital. Messums tell me they have sold 5 paintings already before it has even begun. That's a good omen.
I'll keep you posted.

Tree cosy

Cockermouth has a lovely wide Georgian main street lined with an avenue of pollarded elms. These trees are stark in winter but come the spring ... ah spring! It's hard to imagine at the moment with the cold and frost and ice... they will sprout new lush green and give us all hope of better things to come.
But what is this I see? One of the trees is all wrapped up in a neatly fitted patchwork quilt. That's novel. It's outside our newly located health food shop. I went inside it's newly refurbished interior to find out more.
Ah, now I see. It is a year since the disastrous floods hit the town. The force of the water stoved in the window of the wool shop and distributed the contents of the shop all over the place. It unravelled everywhere. Wherever you looked there was wool. It defied the laws of physics that a little shop could contain so much wool.
Now, as a celebration of our recovery, Cathy Newbury has made it into a novel project. She has gathered in every bit left when the water subsided and has given a whole new meaning to recycling. She has used it as a community project teaching people to knit. And knit they have! Squares and multi-coloured squares have been sewn together round the tree outside the old wool shop and on the other one outside the premised to which they have relocated. The tree cosy wraps the tree to the height the flood water came as a grim reminder giving us all a reason to rejoice in the miraculous regeneration of our town which is looking so good this Christmas.
It gives a whole new meaning to tree hugging.