NEW CRAFTSMAN GALLERY 路 COLIN ORCHARD 路 IN TIME AND PLACE
ISBN: 978-0-9926590-4-2
Colin Orchard In Time and Place
19 October – 16 November 2013
New Craftsman Gallery 24 Fore Street · St Ives · Cornwall · TR26 1HE 01736 795652 · www.newcraftsmanstives.com
All works available in the show can be viewed on our website from 19 October
All paintings in this exhibition are oil on board Cover: Roussel and Vuillard in Venice 30 x 30 cm
Photo: Seth Todd: ‘Portrait of my Grandad’College Project
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COLIN ORCHARD RBA: IN TIME AND PLACE
Thankfully, after a period of indecision Colin Orchard has picked up his brushes again. His muse proved stronger than his resolve. This has prompted a subtle re-appraisal of purpose. Rather than work under pressure of a given exhibition, this body of work has been painted entirely for personal pleasure in what has proved to be a relaxed and enjoyable year. This, the subsequent exhibition, is Orchard’s first for almost three years. Those emblematic, tonal, misty early-mornings in Cornwall, Suffolk and Venice linger still but are being overtaken by a more dramatic palette and altered subject matter. His people have changed both in time and place. In earlier work Orchard’s camera recorded unknown people in their place. In this imaginary world his people have turned to confront him through the echo of time. Orchard has abandoned his own camera in favour of others; his recent journey began with two black and white photographs; one of Marcel Aron and Tristram Bernard, the other of Pierre and Martha Bonnard at Vermont in 1920; both by Jean-Edouard Vuillard; in both, the subjects are face on to the camera. In the manner of Vuillard himself it is as if Orchard has picked up the brush laid down by past Masters and unashamedly run with it. His portraits and the settings in which they are placed are entirely fictitious. Orchard has reworked and distorted the principle of confrontation to suit his newfound purpose. Nevertheless his dramatis personae and the sense of place are disarmingly familiar, each seeming to conjure its own illusive story. It is as if Orchard has given us a Janus-like view of those fin-de-siecle times. There is a sense of history incumbent in these paintings and yet the mark making will define the artist to anyone familiar with Colin Orchard’s work.
David Wilkinson, St Ives September 2013
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Amfreville, the courtyard 30 x 30 cm
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Taking Tea 35 x 35 cm
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Madame Alsop 30 x 30 cm
Lilac hat 25 x 25 cm
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Maestro 35 x 35 cm
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Martha 28 x 28 cm
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Artist and his dog Poucette 30 x 30 cm
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Pink umbrella, Venice 30 x 30 cm
Midday Venice 46 x 46 cm
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Winter light, Venice 81 x 81 cm
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Morning sun, Venice 20 x 20 cm
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Evening light, Venice 20 x 20 cm
Sunrise, Grand Canal, Venice 30 x 30 cm
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Santa Maria della Salute, Venice 30 x 30 cm
Shotley Gate, Suffolk 33 x 33 cm
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Dawn Heysham Docks, Lancs
46 x 46 cm
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Railway arches, Battersea 20 x 20 cm
Prince of Wales Street, London 28 x 28 cm
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Cornish hamlet 76 x 71 cm
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Ayr garden, winter sunset 46 x 46 cm
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Summer garden 76 x 71 cm
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Sienese bride 28 x 28 cm
Reflection 30 x 30 cm
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'Tre gelati, per favore' 30 x 30 cm
Wedding guests, Venice 30 x 30 cm
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Jane’s summer hat 30 x 30 cm
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Argentinian tenor 25 x 25 cm
Sandra 30 x 30 cm
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Sienese wedding guests 30 x 30 cm
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Waiting in the drizzle 30 x 30 cm
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Family snap 23 x 23 cm
Vuillard and Lucy Hassel 23 x 23 cm
Family portrait 25 x 25 cm
Ted and Louis 23 x 23 cm
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Studio model
18 x 18 cm
Two bronze figures 18 x 18 cm
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Edwardian painter 38 x 38 cm
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Green pots 40 x 40 cm
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Vuillard, figures against a red background 56 x 56 cm
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Tate Gallery, St Ives
56 x 56 cm
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Early Morning, Jerusalem 35 x 35 cm
Towards Jericho 35 x 35 cm
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Check point, Jerusalem 46 x 46 cm
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Walking Daisy, Suffolk
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61 x 61 cm
Suffolk sunrise 76 x 76 cm
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The yellow hat 35 x 35 cm
Olive 23 x 23 cm
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The bathroom 35 x 35 cm
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River Blyth, Suffolk
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61 x 61 cm
COLIN ORCHARD RBA
Born in Ewell, Nr Epsom, Surrey in 1935, Colin Orchard left school in 1950 and began his working life as a messenger with The Times newspaper. Promotion took him to the art department where he trained as a typographer and layout artist. The cartoons of Ronald Searle and Andre Francois inspired him to develop his humorous drawings and he was invited to illustrate The Times House Journal. Although Colin was fully employed, between 1958 to 1963 when he left The Times at Printing House Square, he spent many weekends and evenings freelancing, producing humorous illustrations, for advertisements and magazine articles for: Shell, ICI, WH Smith, RTZ, Harper’s Bazaar, Sony, The Spectator, Time & Tide, the Westbury Hotel, North Thames Gas, Williams & Humbert Sherry, She magazine, Worthington Ales, Pilkington Glass, The Times, News of the World and the Daily Herald newspapers, Shaw & Kilburn-Vauxhall dealers, Gardeners’ Chronicle, the Geographical magazine and the Territorial Army.
He joined Letraset International as art director in 1963, then after ten years left in order to freelance as a graphic designer specialising mainly in brochures and promotional material for property developers.
Colin Orchard moved from Dorking to St Ives in 1983, with his wife Celia, who is a quiltmaker, to develop and pursue his interest in oil painting. In 1993, the late Muriel Archer persuaded him to try for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition – all three pictures submitted were accepted and hung. He has since exhibited in the following galleries:
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London Underground poster designed by Colin Orchard,1961
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Exhibitions
RBA Annual Exhibitions, The Mall, London
Ainscough Contemporary Art, London*
Rowley Gallery, London
Bank Street Gallery, Sevenoaks
Royall Fine Art, Royal Tunbridge Wells
Belgrave Gallery, St Ives
Seascape Gallery, Godalming
Bell Fine Art, Winchester
Trelyon Gallery, St. Ives
Blackheath Gallery, London
Walker Galleries, Harrogate and Honiton*
Book Gallery, St Ives*
Waterford Gallery, Hale, Manchester
Brian Sinfield, Burford
Wills Lane Gallery, St Ives
City Gallery (Portland & Thompson’s) London*
Wykeham Gallery, Stockbridge
Courcoux & Courcoux, Stockbridge
*Fifteen solo or two-man exhibitions at these galleries
David Messum, London
Elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 2007
Glasshouse Gallery, Penzance*
Elected a member of St Ives Society of Artists in 2013
Guildford House, Surrey Hagen/Aria, Richmond, Surrey
Bibliography
Island Fine Arts, Isle of Wight*
The Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945 by David Buckman
Langham Fine Art, Bury St Edmunds
Who’s Who in Art 2006/8
Lemon Street Gallery, Truro. ‘Bryan Pearce & Friends’
The Artist 2007
Linfield Gallery, Wells
The Artist International
Lynne Strover, Cambridge
St Ives 1975-2005 Art Colony in Transition by Peter Davies
Medici Gallery, London* Mid Cornwall Gallery, Cornwall
Publications
Montpellier Gallery, Cheltenham
Co-author Art About St Ives 2006
New Craftsman Gallery, St Ives*
Designer/co publisher Gasworks to Gallery – the Story of Tate St Ives
New Grafton Gallery, Barnes On Line Gallery, Southampton
Winner of The Artist Award in 2006 and the Davidson Award in 2007
Penhaven Gallery, St Ives*
at the RBA Annual Exhibitions.
Porthmeor Gallery, St Ives* Red Rag Gallery, Stow-on-the-Wold*
Works in Public Galleries
Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions 1993/94/95/96/97/98
Falmouth Art Gallery & Museum
NEW CRAFTSMAN GALLERY www.newcraftsmanstives.com