Perpetua Pope
Perpetua Pope New Paintings 4 May – 1 June 2011
The Scottish Gallery 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Tel 0131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
Front cover: The Road to the Ferry oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms Opposite: 1 Seascape oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms
Foreword
We are once again delighted to host a show for Pip Pope. Her long association with The Scottish Gallery, her knowledge of 20th Century Scottish painting – she has known most of the major figures and has an extraordinary and surprising eye as a collector – and her quiet dedication to her art make her an exceptional artist for our times. Pip Pope is well prepared for her latest exhibition of new work. Her practice is to bank pictures as they are finished by getting them framed, wrapped and stacked in a spare room. This gives her the confidence that she will have enough work for her show and also, particularly for her oils, it protects the paintings from the dangers inherent in being on an easel in the studio; of being over-painted. She is intensely selfcritical and despite a professional career that approaches the prodigious she is riven with doubt and always exercised about
how to leave a painting; to declare it finished. Making art is a process and the declaration that a work is finished implies a swagger of confidence alien to Miss Pope; she often prefers a landscape, say of Eoligarry on Barra, as it first appears washed in with thinned paint. This is how she identifies the mood and atmosphere which attaches to a particular place, but in the subsequent sessions, sometimes difficult, she allows her own particular vision to characterize and inhabit the picture and make it unmistakably a Perpetua Pope. And for this we are grateful. Some years ago we celebrated the artist’s ninetieth birthday with an exhibition; there is no need for a current milestone but by the evidence displayed in this show we can look forward to more… Guy Peploe Managing Director, The Scottish Gallery
2 Blackthorn I oil on canvas 40.5 x 56 cms
3 Blackthorn III oil on canvas 40.5 x 56 cms
4 Blackthorn IV oil on canvas 40.5 x 56 cms
5 Shore, East Lothian oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms 6 Vatersay oil on canvas 71 x 91 cms
7 Cambo Snowdrops I oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms
8 Bank with Scabious oil on canvas 40.5 x 30.5 cms
9 Sun through the Trees watercolour and pastel 57 x 54.5 cms
10 Peat Bank, Islay oil on canvas 35.5 x 61 cms
11 Autumn Garden oil on canvas 35.5 x 45.5 cms
12 Flowers on the Shore I oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms
13 Honesty oil on canvas 40.5 x 40.5 cms
14 Orchis oil on canvas board 24 x 17.5 cms
15 Summer Flowers watercolour 59.5 x 58 cms
16 Early Flowers watercolour 21.5 x 23 cms
17 Barra watercolour 15 x 20 cms 18 Dark Sea, Barra oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms
19 Cliff Path oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms
20 The Road to the Ferry oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms 21 Summer Field, Barra oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms
22 September Flowers oil on canvas 30.5 x 40.5 cms
23 Flowers on the Shore III oil on canvas board 20 x 25.5 cms 24 Shore, Barra oil on canvas 40.5 x 56 cms
25 The Lammermuirs oil on canvas board 17.5 x 24 cms
26 The Orchard oil on canvas board 17.5 x 24 cms
27 Still Water, Rosehall oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms
28 White Tree Paeony oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms
29 White Tree Paeony watercolour 51 x 63.5 cms
Perpetua Pope Born Warwickshire. Educated Albyn School, Aberdeen. Studied Edinburgh College of Art. Trained Moray House College of Education. Taught in primary and private schools. Lecturer Visual Arts Moray House College of Education. Resigned 1973 to become full time painter. Solo Exhibitions 1956, 65, 75, 78, 82, ’06, ’11 1979 1980 1986, 93 96, 2001 1983, 87, 90, 92, 94 1984 1998
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh The Loomshop Gallery, Lower Largo Peter Potter Gallery, Haddington The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh Macaulay Gallery Broughton Gallery Stenton Gallery
Mixed Exhibitions 1971
Festival Exhibition, Edinburgh College of Art, 25th Anniversary
Mixed exhibitions in many of the above galleries as well as in RA, RSA, SSA, SSWA, ABDS Artists Annual Exhibitions.
Works in Public Collections Scottish Arts Council City of Edinburgh Art Collection Nuffield Foundation Marks & Spencers Argyll County Council Royal Bank of Scotland Morton Fraser Robert Fleming Collection Admin Staff College, Henley on Thames Works in Private Collections HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and in Britain, USA and France.
Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition Perpetua Pope, New Paintings 4 May – 1 June 2011 Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/perpetuapope ISBN 978-1-905146-52-9 Designed by www.kennethgray.co.uk Photography by John McKenzie Printed by Stewarts All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Tel 0131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk Web www.scottish-gallery.co.uk