Piers Sanders Retrospective

About

As the son of a noted sculptor, Paule Sanders, Piers grew up surrounded by art, training as a painter at Camberwell College of Arts where contemporaries included actor Tim Roth, portrait painters Sarah Raphael (who also died tragically young in 2001) and Catherine Goodman (winner of the BP Portrait Award in 2002), as well as his lifelong friend Richard Lewsey who was selected for USIA Top Artist 2015 . As a student he went his own way rather than trying to please his tutors. In spite, or maybe because of this, his work was included in ‘What They Showed’, the best of graduate work 1982.

"It was Piers’ drypoint prints which attracted the most attention from leading figures in the art world when he exhibited in Kings Lynn. They display his skill and confidence as a draughtsman and have a wonderful texture. He would only take two or three prints from each plate because he said that after that the burr raised by the scriber became too flattened by the printing process. Etchings and aquatints are also on display.

"He painted subjects that meant a lot to him: family portraits, landscapes in the Fens and in Suffolk, domestic objects. Piers’ portraits show unarguably what a talented painter he was.

"His abstract paintings show the deep understanding of colour and form that he gained from many years of figurative painting and drawing. Viewers find themselves attempting to resolve them into natural objects, figures and buildings and they reveal new aspects at every fresh encounter.
One of his prints won first prize in Kings Lynn Open and Tate curator Judith Collins asked to see his work but, being uniquely Piers, he never followed it up. This exhibition is mounted by friends and family who feel he deserved more exposure".

Margaret Ranken

This exhibition is mounted by friends and family who feel he deserved more exposure.