Latest News

LINE OF BEAUTY
LINE OF BEAUTY 8th September 2017 The Percy Kelly Retrospective catalogue is here. Its 108 pages are filled with lovely images tracing Kelly’s artistic development from his first found drawing at the age of 9 to the end of his life aged 74.  You will see many works here that have never been exhibited before.  They go from standard pale watercolours of West Cumbria, the Lakes and Kendal area where he worked in the Post Office as a teenager through big bold charcoal drawings to his massive panoramas of harbours and cliff tops and ... Read More »»
THE TULLIE HOUSE ETCHING
THE TULLIE HOUSE ETCHING 23rd August 2017 Preparations for the Kelly retrospective are accelerating at a pace.  The big news this week is that the etching of Newlands Church is printed, it’s here and it’s wonderful.  All I have to do now is to get the special folder organised.  Robert Adam of Graal Press has printed an edition of 75 from Kelly’s etching plate and there will be no more. The plate will be on display as part of the exhibition and cannot be used again. It is finished. I said I’d tell you the story in my last newsletter. Wel... Read More »»
BUZZ
BUZZ 6th August 2017 With just 7 weeks to go there is a real buzz building up around the Percy Kelly Retrospective which opens 23rd September.  It is all progressing according to plan and looks set to be a real knockout show. In the 4 month duration of the exhibition (it ends 28th January next year – there’s a sobering thought) there will be many special events taking place as we celebrate Kelly’s centenary year and mark the 25 year anniversary of his death. Curating an exhibition in a public gallery has been a very... Read More »»
LATEST NEWS RE THE KELLY RETROSPECTIVE.
LATEST NEWS RE THE KELLY RETROSPECTIVE. 21st June 2017 Plans for the long awaited Kelly retrospective (September 23rd 2017 – January 28th 2018) are now all coming together. There will be more than 100 paintings plus prints, letters, fabrics, photographs and artefacts as well as film. It is all very exciting – and hectic. I have had my head down over the computer for the past 2 months putting the catalogue together.  Friendships have been on hold, newsletters have not been written, birthdays have passed forgotten, phones switched off and visits kept ... Read More »»
PERFECT HARMONY - ROSEHILL REIMAGINED
PERFECT HARMONY - ROSEHILL REIMAGINED 13th April 2017 Last Monday I approached the ‘reimagining’ of Rosehill Theatre, Whitehaven with a degree of trepidation.  This beautiful gem of a place , opened in 1959, was originally imagined by Sir Nicholas Sekers, an Hungarian émigré who came to Whitehaven in 1937, opened a textile mill and spent the war making parachute silk on a government contract  He was a charismatic man – a man of vision whose interest lay in arts and culture. He was on the board of Glyndebourne and Covent Garden and had a compelling ... Read More »»
WORDS, IDEAS - AND A FEW SURPRISES.
WORDS, IDEAS - AND A FEW SURPRISES. 20th March 2017 It’s a week exactly since the Words by the Water began to pack up and leave town; a week since I did my last chairing; a week since I assumed the recovery position and retreated into a darkened room to think. The festival certainly delivered what it promised – words and ideas in plenty. As usual it came full of surprises. Richard Cohen arrived for the very first talk of the festival – How to write like Tolstoy – with a long wooden box which he had brought with him by car, by air and by Virgin t... Read More »»
PERCY KELLY - A RETROSPECTIVE
PERCY KELLY - A RETROSPECTIVE 7th January 2017 In what promises to be a turbulent year of uncertainty I am looking forward to a crack inh the clouds and a bit of joy.. I am launching this newsletterl from the Percy Kelly web site because September 23rd 2017 - January 28th 2018 will be the year of Workington born Percy Kelly.   2018 will be his centenary year. and I am curating an exhibition of his work that I have been researching and gathering for the last 2 or 3 years. I am now so excited to be able to give dates, Tullie House Museum and A... Read More »»
FLOWERS FOR CHRISTMAS
FLOWERS FOR CHRISTMAS 16th December 2016 Thank you so much everyone for such a quick and intelligent response to my mystery flowers. They are Chincherinchee or Star of Bethlehem (proper name is Ornithogalum thyrsoides ) They are known also as a florists nightmare as they last a very long time as we have discovered. They are still cheerfully flowering as they work their way to the top. It is now 6 weeks since I bought them but I cant find any more  which is a shame. Maybe they have been boycotted by florists.  I have now ordered bulbs b... Read More »»
PIT STOP
PIT STOP 24th June 2015 Would you like to see what £2.4 million looks like - no not in your hand but in terms of what it can do?  A small flat in central London perhaps; a Picasso painting; a few luxury cars; a Scottish Island? But I mean something everybody can enjoy.  You can see it at  the beautiful newly renovated Haig Pit by the Percy Kelly Trail from Whitehaven to St Bees.  You can’t miss it. It’s black and yellow and still has the winding shaft and headgear which you can see for miles. Haig Pit was the last and ... Read More »»
THE POWER OF PERCY
THE POWER OF PERCY 30th March 2015 It was good to see Percy Kelly’s little oil, Bridge in Winter, hold its own among some big names in the recent auction at Christies in London. It sold for £3000. If PK can sit next to Christopher Wood, Keith Vaughan, Edward Seago and other Twentieth Century luminaries, he is getting to where he deserves to be. Had he been less self- destructive in his lifetime he would be further on but this is how he wanted it. ‘I cannot paint for monetary gain,’ he wrote in reply to my letter asking for an exh... Read More »»