Val Archer: with pleasure

VAL ARCHER w ith p l easure

Copyright © Chris Beetles Ltd 2023 8 & 10 Ryder Street, St James’s London SW1Y 6QB 020 7839 7551 gallery@chrisbeetles.com www.chrisbeetles.com ISBN 978-1-914906-09-1 Cataloguing in publication data is available from the British Library

A Chris Beetles Ltd Publication Edited by Chris Beetles and Fiona Nickerson Design by Pascale Oakley Photography by Alper Goldenberg Reproduction by www.cast2create.com Colour separation and printing by Geoff Neal Litho Limited

Front cover: Mimosa [29] Front endpaper: Honesty in Tin Baths [44] Back endpaper: Still Life with Penguins [14] Back cover: Oliver Picker’s Basket, Tuscany [47]

0 MUS L I N C URTAI N A N D PI E RO D ELL A F RA N C E S C A oil on canvas 48 x 36 inches

VA L A R C H E R with pleasure

C H R I S B E E TL ES GAL L ERY 2023

VA L A R C H E R Val Archer is one of the most perceptive and meticulous of contemporary painters. Her intensity of observation re ects a lifetime looking at the ideas surrounding what painting is, has been and can be.

Her paintings are generously coloured and deeply attentive to form and texture. Flowers, fruit and fabrics are set against complex, resonant surfaces to encapsulate feelings for places and cultures.

Val was born in Northampton, England, and studied at Manchester College of Art and the Royal College of Art. Her rst solo exhibition was at the long-established Kunsthaus Buhler in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1975. She exhibited with Fischer Fine Art, London, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and with Noortman, Maastricht, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Val’s commissions have included illustrations and paintings for the Sunday Telegraph, BBC Good Food and illustrated books, the most notable being a collaboration

with the Italian food writer Anna del Conte, The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina. In the early 1980’s she co-created the Tate Gallery’s award-winning exhibition Paint and Painting about the history of art materials and of colour and technique in painting.

Travel has long informed and inspired Val’s work.

Latterly this has included Libya, Portugal, The Netherlands, Southern Africa, Myanmar and Iran.

In recent years, she has divided her time between her studios in London and Tuscany, recording the everyday natural and man-made objects that appeal to her.

In 1998, in recognition of Val’s position as a distinctive voice in contemporary still life painting, Chris Beetles Gallery staged its rst solo exhibition of her work. This close and exclusive association has continued to-date with regular exhibitions at its St James’s gallery of her latest paintings.

With pleasure features important new work and selected paintings from the past 25 years.

Chris Beetles Gallery Solo Exhibitions 1998 2001 2007 2011 2012 2014 2016 2019

Val Archer Val Archer Val Archer and the Art of Cucina Val Archer: Touching the Surface of Time Val Archer: An Italian Summer Val Archer: Travels with my Art Val Archer: The Still Moment Val Archer: Place and Culture (loan exhibition at Nunnington Hall, Yorkshire)

All works in the catalogue are signed with initials and painted in oil

Prima dipingere, poi mangiare First paint, then eat

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It started with the majolica tile background and I wanted to put pattern against pattern.

The washed-out blue of the tiles contrasted with vast quantities of crazy, structural agapanthas from our London garden.

The glass vase was to show full structural length of stems.

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2 (opposite) AG A PA N T H A S I N G L A S S VA S E 39 ½ x 24 ½ inches

This painting just evolved, I have to be excited about all the elements, flowers, vase, background and foreground. I used the fabric because it reminds me of water and the amaryllis were so intransigent, I wanted to throw against them something that was broken and fluid. The pomegranates have mosaics inside them like the background.

1 (above) A MA RY L L I S A N D PO ME G RA N AT E S 39 x 27 inches

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4 G RE E N J UG A N D T I L E S F RO M RAV E N N A 10 x 8 inches

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3 VI BURNHAM IN G R EEN VA S E 21 ½ x 15 inches

A friend lent the wonderful eggy-shaped celadon vase and I just put it down in the studio next to the faceted one and they were such a contrast I had to paint them.

The mosaic is a floor from some Roman villa I saw somewhere ...

It’s hard painting sun flowers after Van Gogh, you think, how dare I?

5 (opposite) S UN F LOW E R S A N D T I L E S F RO M LI S BON 29 ½ x 21 ½ inches

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6 T I N OLIV E OIL JU G WITH PL ATE OF PE A R S 19 ½ x 14 inches

I found this extraordinary jug in Arezzo market, I loved its pear-shaped angularity and the anarchy of the hydrangea flower heads.

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Both are associated with Iran, the wonderfully ornate tiles and being in Shiraz when the yellow roses were tumbling everywhere.

7 R AMB LING ROSE A ND P LUM B LOSSOM F ROM SHIRA Z 41 ¼ x 26 inches

These milk pails were simply our wall decorations one year in Italy.

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8 NA STURTIU M S IN M I L K PA I L

9 PE T UN I A S I N MI L K PA I L

30 x 22 inches

30 x 22 inches

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10 PLUMB AGO A ND Y EL LOW RO S E 30 x 22 inches

11 S T RI PE D J UG W I T H A RT I C H O K E 22 x 15 inches

The background is a rusty yellow table top and was my starting point, the jug is from Arezzo market and I just loved the colours.

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12 RO S E H I PS I N RUS T Y O L I V E O I L J UG 15 x 16 ½ inches

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13 C APPEL L I DI P R E TI 30 x 22 inches

‘Cappelli Di Preti’ are priest's caps in Italian (the Spindle plant). The terracotta vase I found in Pissignano's monthly market.

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Jug from a potter who runs a shop in the centre of Cortona and it called to me from the shelf. The stripey material is from our front door curtain when I was a kid and the rest is just gorgeous orange things. Pomegranates from our tree and the ‘zucca’ from our neighbour Patrizia.

14 STILL LIFE WITH PEN G U I N S

15 (opposite) RO S E H I PS I N CO RTO N E S E VA S E

22 x 30 inches

30 x 22 inches

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Again about a sense of place. The vase which I found in an antique shop in Cortona, is a particular design of pottery associated with the region and the rosehips were out at the same time I bought it.

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16 GER A NI U M A N D G O O S EB ER R I ES ON M O S A I C 20 ½ x 14 ½ inches

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17 PINK CHER RY B LO S S O M O N M O S A I C 29 ½ x 22 inches

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18 ME ADOW 22 x 15 inches

Walking in the hills is my favourite thing to do and I walk every morning passing marvellous meadow grasses beside the road. The farmers don’t use pesticides so there are so many wild flowers, amongst the wheat that has escaped from farmer ’s fields. The wind is always blowing so that is why they are leaning.

I didn’t want to confine them in a vase, I wanted them to be as free and full of air as they were when I saw them each morning.

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19 AUTU M N L E AVES A ND A P P L ES 37 x 25 inches

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20 NA STURTIU M S

21 P E TU N I A S

22 B LUE F LOW E R

11 ½ x 3 inches

11 ½ x 3 ¼ inches

11 ½ x 3 ¼ inches

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23 VERB A SCU M

24 P I N K J A PA NES E A N E MO N E

25 PLUMB AG O

26 H AW T H O RN B E RRI E S

11 ¼ x 3 ¾ inches

11 ½ x 3 ¾ inches

11 ½ x 3 ¾ inches

20 ¼ x 5 inches

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27 WINT ER RO S ES , S U M M ER RO S EB U DS

28 (opposite) COW PA R S L E Y A N D D I A N T H US

30 x 22 inches

30 x 22 inches

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I enjoyed the balance and contrast of ‘la mezzina’ [Tuscan well bucket] a galvanised solid bucket with the airy, transparent, delicacy of the cow parsley and dianthus.

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29 MIM OSA 25 x 19 inches

Mimosa is spring in Italy for me, frothy, funny, frivolous flowers.

I am really drawn to patterns but I don’t want the painting to be entirely flat, so I try to balance the pattern with something that is in the round and tactile.

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30 TE A FOR T WO 13 ½ x 16 ½ inches

31 (above left) PO ME G RA N AT E I S FA H A N 8 x 8 inches

28 32 (above) PE AC H W I T H T I L E S 8 x 6 inches

Lemons from the tree that Italian friends bought me for my birthday years ago.

33 L E MO N S 15 x 11 inches

34 (above) L ANGOU STINE 8 x 8 inches

29 35 (above right) L ANGOU STINE ON F I S H M O S A I C 8 ¼ x 12 inches

‘Kelvedon Wonder’ grown both in the garden in Italy and my father’s allotment.

36 PEAS 15 x 11 inches

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We grew them both and loved the shapes and colours together.

Eat with your eyes.

37 (above) SQUA SH AND SM A L L AU B ERG I N E 8 x 8 inches

38 (above right) T WO POTS OF MA R M A L A DE 6 x 8 inches

39 (right) C H ERRIES IN B RA S S B OW L 12 x 8 ¼ inches

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These things are all in my kitchen in Italy and we were so proud of the tomatoes that we grew that year.

40 B RA SS BOWL WIT H TO M ATO ES 21 x 28 ¼ inches

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41 J U G O F B U T TERCU P S

42 (opposite) B A S K E T O F P E AR S

15 x 11 inches

22 x 14 ½ inches

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I was in Italy and thinking about Sienese paintings. It was such an arid summer. The trees were so dry, the bleached, dead leaves were blowing off, all becoming autumn before autumn.

43 RE D G L A S S J A R A N D H O N E S T Y 8 x 8 inches

There were clouds of crackly Honesty growing by the side of the road and I had to paint them.

44 H O N E S T Y I N T I N B AT H S

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29 ½ x 39 ½ inches

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45 POPPY S EED H E A DS A N D F O R S Y TH I A 30 x 22 inches

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These are exactly the colours just before autumn in Italy, when there is a slight mist in the air which turns everything a hazy greeny gray.

Heather grows against the lichen covered rocks on the hillside and the lace echoes the intricate structure of the heather.

46 H E AT H E R 27 ½ x 20 ½ inches

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47 OLIV E PICKER'S B A S KE T, TU SC ANY 29 ½ x 22 inches

I was trying to get the feeling of what it was like in Italy last October. The light coming through my studio window and the old olive picker ’s basket, lent to us by our neighbour, Ugo, to pick our own olives for the first time.

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48 B ROC ADE CHAIR AND PE ACHES 30 x 22 inches

In the church of San Francesco in Montefalco, there is a stunning fresco cycle by Gozzoli, tucked behind a corner against a mouldering wall is this beautiful brocade chair with puny, little twisty legs that don’t look right. I added the bum-like peaches.

with pleasure ... works from the last 25 years

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49 BOWL S AND PL AT ES 40 x 56 inches Exhibited: ‘Val Archer’, Chris Beetles Gallery, London, 2001

1998 ‘Val Archer’, Chris Beetles Gallery, October 1998 50 T H E PE N T RAY 7 ¾ x 12 inches

51 MA MB A ZO 26 x 35 inches

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2001 ‘Val Archer’, Chris Beetles Gallery, October 2001 52 VI NE TOM ATOES 12 x 14 ½ inches

53 SHEEKE Y ’ S L ANGO U S TI N ES 23 ½ x 29 ½ inches

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2007 ‘Val Archer, The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina’, Chris Beetles Gallery, October 2007

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54 B E AN S AND PUL S ES 16 x 21 ¼ inches

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55 S A N DA N I EL L E H A M 29 x 19 inches Illustrated: Anna Del Conte and Val Archer, The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina, London: Conran Octopus, 2007, page 98

2011 ‘Val Archer. Touching the Surface of Time’, Chris Beetles Gallery, May 2011

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56 FRU T TA

57 (opposite) D I S E G NO

30 x 22 inches

30 x 22 inches

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2012 ‘Val Archer. An Italian Summer’, Chris Beetles Gallery, May 2012

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58 P ER SIM M ON S AND F R EES I A S 17 x 21 ½ inches

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59 EGGS FOR Z AB AGLIONE AND MAJOLIC A TILES 22 ½ x 30 inches Illustrated: Anna Del Conte and Val Archer, The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina, London: Conran Octopus, 2007, pages 54-55

2014 ‘Val Archer. Travels with My Art’, Chris Beetles Gallery, June 2014

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60 WHITE T U L I P S

61 (opposite) C H E RRY S TONES

22 x 19 ¾ inches

29 x 21 inches

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2016 ‘Val Archer. The Still Moment’, Chris Beetles Gallery, October 2016

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62 YELLOW BOW L , R ED A P P L ES

63 (opposite) Q UI N C E S I N B RA S S BOWL

21 ¼ x 23 inches

29 ½ x 21 inches

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2019 ‘Place and Culture, Val Archer at Nunnington Hall’, North Yorkshire, February 2019 64 Q UI N C E A N D A PPLES O N CO S MAT E S Q UE 14 x 21 inches

65 (below) F I G S , A PPL E S A N D WA L N UT S 21 ¾ x 30 inches

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CHRIS B E E TL ES G A L L ERY 8 & 10 Ryder Street, St James’s London SW1Y 6QB 020 7839 7551 gallery@chrisbeetles.com www.chrisbeetles.com