Places for the Abstract workshops were limited and have now closed. Those of you who unfortunately missed out on the workshops with Garry Foye and Carol Corrie, will have to wait until the next round of workshops for an opportunity.  

Out The Back, Through The Stack  

In order to let the public know more about the Muswellbrook Shire Art Collection and the Max Watters Collections, Roger will be offering guided tours through "The Stack" as we like to call it. "The Stack" is where the Arts Centre hang the paintings from both collections. These tours will be limited to a maximum number of four guests at a time, due to environmental restraints and physical space. This rare opportunity for a behind-the-scenes look at the collection is being made available by Roger to allow local people and artists to gain a rare view of the collection in its other habitat. These tours will be offered on the Sundays when Roger is rostered on. If you are interested in joining one of these tours please call Roger on 02 6549 3769 or 0407 909 550 or email roger.skinner@muswellbrook.nsw.gov.au

The Lure of the Four Elements is a themed exhibition currently on show at the Arts Centre until 27 November 2011. Based on the second chapter of the book on the Arts Centre's collection, Fifty Plus: Half a century of collecting at Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre  by Katrina Rumley, it features a selection of works from the collection that illuminates the variety of approaches the artist may take when confronting the four elements that the ancients believed make up the material world: earth, wind, fire and water. William Peascod's work, Landscape Theme No 5, winner of the Muswellbrook Open Art Prize in 1965 reflects one such approach.   

William Peascod Landscape Theme No 5, 1965 oil on canvas on hardboard Muswellbrook Shire Art Collection Winner Muswellbrook Open Art Prize 1965 image courtesy of the artist

Born in 1920 in Ellenborough, England, Peascod was the son of a miner. He began work in the West Cumbrian coal pits at the age of fourteen. Peascod was an avid young reader and it was through his extensive reading that he was given the incentive to take up rock climbing, his other great lifelong passion. Peascod went on to pioneer and name many great climbing routes in both the United Kingdom and Australia, including the Bread Knife in the Warrumbungles and Beerwah in the Glasshouse Mountains.

Peascod left the coal pits to became a chartered mining engineer and teacher, and in 1952 he and his wife Margaret sailed to Australia on a free passage to work in Wollongong. On the map it looked much like his homeland, with industry on the coast and an enticing hinterland of mountains, but he was devastated to find the slopes covered in rainforest and unclimbable. Peascod then took up painting to fill the void and within a few years was being sought out by important galleries. His paintings often bore Australian mountain names or general titles like "Landscape" but it has been suggested that all the time he was painting the Cumberland Fells.

 

The surface of a cliff face was a familiar experience to Peascod, a quality of surface which emerged through his painting. Anthony Bond, Gallery Director of Wollongong City Gallery for the 1980 William Peascod Retrospective Exhibition said of Peascod, "his work possesses the spirituality that is derived from a close personal contact with the forces of nature expressed simply and unpretentiously".

  

The drama and horror of Peascod's experience in the mines, in particular two mining disasters due to underground explosions in 1946 and 1947, stamped itself permanently on his consciousness and was also to later influence his painting technique. As seen in the work that is part of Muswellbrook Shire's Art Collection,  Landscape Theme No 5, Peascod used a burnt paint technique in which the interaction of paint with fire was controlled by the artist while following its natural course. 

 

Peascod won a scholarship to Japan in 1971 to teach in an art school in Kyoto, where he met his second wife Etsu. In 1980 at the age of 60 he and his family returned to England to settle in a farmhouse on the slopes of Skiddaw. It was in 1985 while climbing Colin Kirkus's classic 'Great Slab' on Clogwyn du Arddu (Cloggy - The Black Cliff), Wales that Peascod suffered a massive heart attack and passed away.

William Peascod on the crux pitch, Photo Bill Birkett collection

 

William Peascod exhibited in every major city in eastern Australia and his works are included in the collections of the National galleries of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Newcastle City Gallery, Wollongong City Gallery and Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre.

 

In Peascod's own words, "I have been associated with mountains for much of my life. These paintings are I think a reflection of my attitude to them. If they are heard to whisper of joy, solace, hope, love and pure physical involvement with place and time and mountain, ridge and crag, then they have said what I hoped they would" (1979).

 

References

Bill Peascod 2010, Castlegate House Gallery

http://www.castlegatehouse.co.uk/artist-detail.php?AID=9

Bill Peascod 1950-1980 Retrospective Exhibition Catalogue 1980, Wollongong City Gallery

Birkett, Bill 1983, Lakeland's Greatest Pioneers, Robert Hale in

http://footlesscrow.blogspot.com/2011/02/lakeland-pioneer-bill-peascod.html

 

30th October - 27th November

opening night: 6.00pm Saturday 29th October 

• 2011 Muswellbrook Local Art Awards
• Selections from the Max Watters Collection
• 50+ The Locals

5th December - 18th December

• Red Cross Christmas Trees and Wreaths
• Local Artist Selling Show