Once the world was a relatively simple place. Today the volume of information is bewildering. This is especially true of painting, as explained in the Preface. Hence this website & document. Its purpose is to provide those seeking information on painting with what they require in one dedicated & readily available site. This information should be of use to picture viewers, students & anybody else who wants to know about painters & their works.
I have done my best not to waste words but to preserve readability. There are numerous sub-headings so that readers can skip through to find exactly what they require. Wherever possible, statements have been backed by an authoritative source. ble to identify these by clicking on the reference & discovering the full details on the source, as given in the list of Sources Cited. Where statements are not backed by authority, the text appears in square brackets except where they are obvious or uncontentious.
As yet Pittura is woefully incomplete. However, new items are being added day by day. If you can spot any errors or have any comments or criticisms, please contact me on richardpryke@yahoo.com
TO MOVE TO ANY SECTION INCLUDING SOURCES, CLICK ON THE RELEVANT ITEM IN THE BLACK BOX. THEN WHEN THE TEXT APPEARS CLICK ON THE DESIRED ITEM IN THE LIST/INDEX (Sections 3, 7, 8, 9) OR IF AN ALPHABET APPEARS ON THE FIRST LETTER OF THE NAME, SUBJECT, PLACE OR TITLE OF A DESIRED ARTIST, PLACE , OR SOURCE (Sections 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 & SOURCES). IN SECTIONS 1 & 2 THIS WILL REQUIRE MUCH SCROLLING. HENCE IT IS BEST TO USE THE (not yet available) FIND FACILITY.
Richard Pryke
I was born in Southgate, North London, in 1933. My father was a master builder. Having failed the eleven-plus, I went to Highgate School. After being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure at Delmenhorst in north Germany, where I served in the Royal Artillery, I went to Keble College, Oxford. Here I read Philosophy, Politics & Economics.
From 1958 to 1964 I worked in the Research Department of the Labour Party at Transport House, & between 1964 & 1968 at the Department of Applied Economics, Cambridge, undertaking research on the nationalised industries, an area I had previously covered at Transport House. In the elections of 1964 & 1966 I was a Labour candidate, & I served briefly in 1966 in the Cabinet Office at Number Ten. However, I resigned in protest at the Stop-Go measures, arguing that the correct policy was to devalue the pound: a step that the Government finally had to take in 1968.
By this time I was working in the Department of Economics at the University of Liverpool. Here I lectured on the nationalised industries & the economics of health & energy. In 1973 my big book Public Enterprise in Practice was published. In it I argued that the performance of the nationalised industries was much better than generally supposed. However, I was soon disillusioned by the research which I undertook into British Rail, which made it abundantly clear that it was grossly over-staffed but did not care because of its large & increasing public subsidy. In 1981 there was another book of recantation in which I said that nationalisation was proving a failure. I took early retirement in 1989, having risen to the dizzy height of Senior Lecturer.
For the next ten years, suffering from a guilty conscience at being more affluent than before, I largely devoted my time to research on the measurement of poverty & the way in which the poverty trap could be eliminated. Nobody took much notice, & I decided to do something more personally rewarding. I wrote a book on Norman Garstin, a neglected painter who belonged to the Newlyn School.
Art had always been a great interest. While I was at school I had been an enthusiastic sketcher & thereafter I never missed an opportunity to visit an art gallery. However, it was working on the book that rekindled my interest in painting. Inspired by Norman Garstin I took up oil painting & decided to work on the spot. This I have done from 2005, working almost every available day in all weathers, including wind & temperatures down to freezing point. My work has included landscapes, townscapes, buildings of all types, & interiors. I have mainly worked around Chester, where I live, but have also painted in Liverpool & Manchester, & as far afield as the United States, India & the Continent. My efforts have had some success both in selling my work & in exhibiting. Paintings have been shown at a number of Open Exhibitions including the Three Counties, the Grosvenor Museum, the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, & the Royal Cambrian Academy. My painting Ichabod is now part of the permanent collection at the Grosvenor Museum.
Ichabod, 2005 (The Grosvenor Museum)
Self-Portrait, 2005