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Inspiration from Artists week 63 : Gordon Beningfield and Andrew Haslen.

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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Welcome to this weeks Inspiration fro Artists , the featuring artist this week are  Gordon Beningfield and Andrew Haslen.  I will open with my introduction to Gordon Beningfield and on Wednesday Jenny will present Andrew Haslen. I hoe you all have a good week and enjoy the artwork and most importantly produce some great paintings yourself. It with great pleasure thst I introduce the paintings and sketches of Gordon Beningfield who is one of the artists that I have always admired and initially when I stated to paint I wanted to paint like him, I’ve never reach such a high standard but can dream on. I know his style isn’t to everyone’s taste, some people like my eldest daughter thinks it too sweet and surgery looking, wonder if that’s a technical description used by art critics . I get what she means ad it’s seen to be a yearning for the past but that’s exactly what he was doing.  Gordon George Beningfield 1936 - 1998. Born in Bermondsey London . Beningfield moved to Hertfordshire in 1941 as  result of the blitz, his father was a lighterman and amateur artist who Gordon described as his first influence. Describing his school life he claimed he was good at very little , due no doubt to his struggling with dyslexia. He was encouraged to paint by his headmaster who also introduced to the work of JMW Turner who became a life long influence for him. He is know for his paintings of the countryside and his work as  Countryside Champion. Wikipedia has a very good bio of his life .  I could fill the whole week posting his paintings , it’s so difficult choosing what I particularly like . 
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Lewis Cooper

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Another astonishing watercolourist, and I like his drawings too.  I particularly admire the maritime painting above and was hoping to find more, a quick search produced only the painting above.  I'll look again later.

Jenny Harris

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Lovely delicate watercolours of the countryside.  I especially like the second one you’ve posted, Paul, of the skylark with its nest, and his other paintings of birds.

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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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I can only find the one painting of ships Lew , I know he specialised in the English countryside so most of his work is landscape and small, painting of plants animals, and farm related things . I’m pleased you like his work Jenny , I was thinking of your comment about the amount of British landscapes we have seen recently, but I think his work is a bit different as it’s often small closeups of a particular thing. I have seven of his books thst I really enjoy looking through, they are all about the countryside but cover poetry that he  has added paintings to , not his own poems . . I can’t resist showing more of his work.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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I have two books by Gordon Beningfield, in which just about all of these paintings are shown.  He caught the scenes that some of the older among us will remember, if we lived in the countryside.  It's a bit different now - haven't seen a shepherd's hut for years, for one thing.  Not so much idealized, as of the past - not the same thing. He had a very individual technique, working in all sorts of media - conté crayon, watercolour, gouache, mixes of all three.   He could convey great spaces without making them seem over-worked or over-precise, while still capturing detail; his foliage greens were superbly accomplished: and I love his piggy pictures, as would my mother have done had she seen them: she was the world's leading pig fancier, I sometimes thought....  
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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Just read Paul's words about his daughter's view of Beningfield: I've sort of addressed that already, really, but feel obliged to add that yes, his pictures did somewhat romanticize country life, but to nowhere near the extent of some Victorian painters, who depicted village children in their pristine smocks - whereas almost certainly, those children would have been dirty, pinched, and hungry.  His was a generation or so later, though - and of a time even I, at a fresh-faced, nay,  Spring-like 72, can still remember.  OK, it wasn't all quite so picturesque as GB sometimes made it appear, but the grasses, the flowers, the birds, were all there - pesiticide hadn't yet decimated them, though it would; old wooden fences still featured (still do, in places); if old buildings were patched up, they didn't use slabs of concrete; and there was no sign of oil-seed rape - though I seem to remember he did paint that in one picture, You could still walk into a field and raise a huge flock of lapwings into the sky - I haven't seen a single one in the last 50 years....  It wasn't Heaven on earth, or anything like it, but - I know what we've lost; and Beningfield caught it. 
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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Your spot on there Robert , I was fortunate to live in several places in the countryside and it’s his depiction of it that I fondly remember seeing . I remember going on to farms and seeing working horses and old tractors towing all sort of machinery and spud bashing with my mum , that could be cold and miserable work. Nostalgic and accurate is what I would call his  work , anyone who has not seen it for real would think it was inaccurate and romanticised, but if you look close there are tithe  fences, etc. And  it’s possible to still come across the odd corner of a field, farm , orchard that had retained that old look to it but it’s becoming increasingly rare. 

Sylvia Evans

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These are lovely...sugary sweet decidedly no.  As Paul has said a blast fron the past with wooden fences and farm machinery a gentler time.  Those dandelion clocks are wonderful , I have a garden full at the moment so might take inspire.  That cuckoo ( well I think it is) just fab.... still not heard one this year . Smashing choice. 
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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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I’m really pleased that his work is receiving some nice comments, I must admit to been a bit unsure of how it might be received. I think the difference between artists looking at paintings is very different from none artists , some people think it’s old fashioned as I have said however your looking at the quality of his work not just the composition nor the subject alone .  It’s the same for all the artist we have seen on this thread , the paintings are not always to our taste but we recognise and respect the skill used to create them. 
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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Can’t resist posting some more of his artwork before we change featuring artists tomorrow.

Jenny Harris

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Andrew Haslen was born in Essex in 1953 and now lives in Suffolk.  He has had a lifelong interest in nature and his work is inspired by the landscape and wildlife that surrounds his home.  A self-taught artist he has been motivated by the work of 20th Century wildlife artists such as R.B. Talbot Kelly and Eric Ennion. The hare features often in his work having had first hand experience of hand-raising three orphaned hares.  He knows the creature well and continues to be fascinated by them.  Other subjects he particularly likes are birds, especially the more colourful ones such as woodpeckers and kingfishers. In addition to painting, mostly in oil but also acrylic, he produces colourful multi-block linocuts.  He has published two books showcasing his work - The Winter Hare and Halcyon.  He was elected a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists in 1988 and has exhibited at their annual exhibition every year since. The last two images are linocuts.

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Lewis Cooper

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As someone who likes linear art, this artist is right up my street.  Wonderful work.  Here's some I like... You'll notice a band of almost black trees in the background, this is a powerful graphic device widely used by many artists.  I think of it as a black frieze for want of a better description, and first came across it in one of Toulouse Lautrec's posters.   Here's its use again by this artist... I think it's very effective.  (I've used it a few times myself.)   I like his strong use of line and darks.  Here's another I like... He doesn't use this bold linear style all the time.  I like this variation in style too... For me, a superb, stylish artist.  Another I didn't know.   Thank you Jenny.
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