Exhibition
Blair Hughes-Stanton: Unique Works on Paper
8 Feb 2020 – 28 Mar 2020
Regular hours
- Monday
- Closed
- Tuesday
- Closed
- Wednesday
- Closed
- Thursday
- Closed
- Friday
- Closed
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Sunday
- Closed
Address
- The Walls
- Essex
- Manningtree
- CO11 1AS
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- Manningtree Railway Station is one hour from London Liverpool Street
Blair Hughes-Stanton (1902–1981) was best known in his lifetime for his wood-engravings and later linocuts. But he also created a body of drawings and paintings. This exhibition presents a cross-section of his unique works on paper.
About
The life drawings from the 1920s are on the whole expressive rather than naturalistic, often with a hint of humour. The watercolours from the mid-thirties fall into three groups: strange surrealist figures in bare landscapes; exuberant, calligraphic, Picasso-esque figures with horses; and a relaxed series of recumbent figures. The last two summers before WWII were spent in Cassis in the South of France, where, at the height of his powers, he produced images of bathers and sunbathers in ink and watercolour.
Although captured, badly injured and imprisoned in the war, he continued to draw in the hospitals and prison camps.The focus of his drawings and watercolours on his return was his local pub in Stratford St Mary. These works are detailed and amusing.
In 1947 he started a series of drawings in pencil and then pastel of the River Stour at Stratford St Mary. Although the earlier ones are straight landscapes in subdued blue and green, the later ones were, by 1949, peopled by scantily clad young women in more vibrant tones.
In the early 1950s he made large, elaborate ink and watercolour images inspired by Greek myths and the Iliad. Only two are now available. The exhibition concludes with a series of happy, personal monotypes from 1953.