Frank Brangwyn was a multifaceted artist-craftsman who created murals, posters, oils, watercolours and furniture, textiles, ceramics, stained glass and prints.

Among his significant body of work are many items  in the Scarborough art collection.

Commissioned to produce  posters to support the War Bonds Campaign Brangwyn created many poster designs during the first World War. Many were given free of charge to charitable groups such as the Red Cross, National Institute for the Blind  St Dunstan’s Hostel for Blinded Soldiers and Sailors , Belgian and Allied Aid Leagues and others. In 1918 his poster above ‘War Bonds 1’ was issued by the National War Savings Committee, and described  as ‘one of the most vicious posters that the war produced’ it was toned down slightly with’ War Bonds 2′  using landscape proportions and different expressions.

Dr Elizabeth Horner, the leading authority on his work, curated an exhibition of posters from the Harrogate Mercer Art Gallery collection in 2014 which led to the production of a well illustrated book ‘Brangwyn’s War – Posters of the First World War.’
Brangwyn borrowed uniforms of British and German soldiers from the Imperial War Museum to ensure accuracy.

John Atkinson Grimshaw (JAG)

Whitby Looking South 1883

FlicrAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

What would an artist want to be remembered for? An appreciation of his or her works irrespective of genre, perceived or intrinsic value? A combination of factors doubtless but that is probably not why they started painting.

JAG is remembered for his northern scenes with wet streets, winter afternoons, moon-lit nights and gaslit docksides. Perhaps we now think of his paintings as representing ‘it’s grim up north’. (but no it’s Grimshaw up North)

JAG died from TB at a relatively early age of 53. As a younger painter he was sponsored by the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society which still operates as a local charity and helps fund the Leeds City Galleries

Painting fresh air or wet smokey atmospheres  for that matter is reminiscent of JWM Turner who was renown for his landscapes and seascapes. Like JAG many of  his exceptional paintings were executed in Yorkshire.

Yorkshire born former Bradford Art College student Christopher shares his surname with a Leeds village Bramham cum Oglethorpe.

‘Christopher Bramham new work‘  from jonathan clark fine art available from amazon and others 

From an introduction by Sebastian Smee, the Australian-born  art critic for the Washington Post, we learn about CB’s fascination with Henri Matisse and his work from his Nice period around 1919.

CB’s next friend to be referenced in the introduction is Lucien Freud along side his strong 1989 portrait at the start of the book. He also offers up a useful quote from LF ‘nothing is so insignificant that you can’t  trouble over it’, a mantra I should take to heart in my artistic endeavours.

Lessons from CB’s drawing shown in the 50 or so photographs includes the use of a variety of hatching, coloured light and withholding to emphasise shine, opacity and texture in addition to modelling. I particularly like the extended pages that show detail that highlights to me the variety of texture CB generates.

I am new to CB’s work but found the style and attention to detail very much to my taste. I will be looking out for examples of his work in the Yorkshire galleries.