Latest News

This Saturday the Guardian Newspaper is running a feature article about Percy Kelly. Blake Morrison reviews the biography The Man who couldn't stop Drawing and flags up the exhibition at Theatre by the Lake and Castlegate House...read more

Things are cranking up a notch or three as the catalogues for the Kelly Discoveries show drop on doormats. I am reliably informed that the above image is the bridge just outside Cleator Moor on the Ennerdale road. You can see Wath Brow Church in the background. I titled it simply The Bridge. ...read more

Friday 2nd March will be a day of openings and surprises. The Percy Kelly exhibition is divided between two venues which will stretch our ingenuity and that of our visitors. But Kelly afficionados are made of strong stuff. They find their way to a Kel...read more

The large gallery room in Cork Street was packed last Tuesday evening. There was 'an appreciative buzz from...read more

Now we have Christmas out of the way it is time to la...read more

Happy Christmas to you all wherever you are. Angel and the Gem Jars sounds like a pop group - and it is. It's the team who keep the gallery going. Angie is front (and back) of house and John and Gill are volunteers who cover when Angie and I are otherwis...read more

O COME O COME EMANUEL. Once upon a time many years ago when I was young and beautiful (I'm being over imaginative here) I stayed with a friend in Wiltshire. She had just acquired two new paintings - interesting, sensitive figure paintings in oils...read more

A woman is as young as her knees. Mary Quant's comment in the giddy sixtiies came to mind Friday evening as I put on my Little Black Dress as exhorted on the invitation to the opening of the exhibition of the same name at Tullie House in Carlisle. I took her wise comment on ...read more

It was an ideal time to start Christmas shopping. Late at night, after a few glasses of wine and the presentation of the Turner Prize, I was in the mood. After the heady combination of art, celebrity and money I hit the gallery shop which had been kept open specially for me? Not true but it felt ...read more

At the top left of Scotland there is an island called North Uist. It is part of the remote Western Isles with a population of about a thousand if you don't count the sheep. Robert Adam of Graal Press who lives and works near Roslin, South of Edinburgh - yes, that Roslin of the Da ...read more

The launch of The man who couldn't stop drawing was an overwhelming success. Over 200 copies sold  on Saturday including pre-orders and by the end of the day I was in danger of mis-spelling my own name. I have posted out the hard cover orders today. We are now geared up to post out...read more

Excitement is mounting as publication day for the new book approaches. pre-orders for the slip-case edition of 75 has now reached over 60 so there is still time. We are now hanging the Christmas show to coincide with the book launch on Saturday. The highlight is a suite of 10 Percy Kelly etchings ma...read more

The launch date at Castlegate House for the Kelly biography The Man who couldn't stop Drawing  will be Saturday November 19th. I will be in the gallery all day from 10.30 signing books and chatting as well as taking the odd celebratory sip of wine. It is also the opening of the...read more

This is the title of the Percy Kelly biography which will be ready before the end of November. It is a full colour hard back book 196 pages and tells the story of the life of this extraordinary artist. We have a Special Christmas offer £30 (rrp £35) Postage is £5...read more

Winifred Nicholson, Sheila Fell and Percy Kelly are the subjects of an illustrated talk on November 8th from 2.00 - 4.00pm in the Parish Rooms in Ulverston. Chris Wadsworth will be discussing the lives and works of these outstanding artists at the invitation of the U3A. There will be film footage of...read more

­Helen Tabor will be in the gallery this Friday evening 6.00 - 8.00 for the launch of her exhibition. Come and join the party. It's a good show. Otherwise see www.castlegatehouse.co.uk.

­ The Bennett show is in its last week. It has been well enjoyed, well visited and well bought. You can see the red spots and what is still available to buy at www.castlegatehouse.co.uk or co...read more

­ The appointment was 2pm on Monday and he was spot on time despite walking the seven miles from Loweswater where he was staying. He bought the unframed Percy Kelly drawing of Loweswater church, stashed it in his rucksack and set off to walk back down the River Cocker. This was just the beg...read more

AFTER HERCULES is the theme of my talk at The Heron Theatre at Beetham (South of Kendal) on Friday 16th September at 7.30 pm. A lot has happened during and after the publication of the book - so there will be more stories of art and artists, more strange predicaments and plenty of n...read more

June and Michael Bennett have pulled it off again and produced a magnificent exhibition which fills the whole gallery with colour and light. June's work is immediate and exuberant with thick textures making a bold statement. Michael's is more studied and dreamlike. He sometimes works on a ...read more

Malcolm Wilson is an architect who has his head in the clouds. By day he is busy running a practice in Carlisle designing cutting edge buildings and developing sharp modernist schemes. In any spare time he can find in his hectic schedule, he paints cloudscapes. A quiet modest man, he has designed a ...read more

The silence is broken. I have been in writing purdah. But now the next book has gone off to the publishers and I can live again! I have been head down and working like crazy on the incredible story of Percy Kelly - the man who couldn't stop drawing. Not sure of the title yet but hoping the p...read more

The jewel of our Summer Exhibition which opens on Friday is this beautiful painting by Winifred Nicholson titled Lily of the Valley St Bees. Her eldest son Jake was at St Bees School during the war for a time. Winifred visited him there and made several paintings loo...read more

­'Be careful, the paint's still wet!' was the warning as Marie Scott came through the door last Sunday. Fresh from her easel, the painting to the right still has no title - it may evolve or it may stay as Untitled 42. (or it may come to rest on our wall as so many other Scotts ...read more

Think of a summer afternoon in an English garden with the heady smell of old roses, a Jazz band and sculpture on the lawn. Combine that with a great new exhibition of paintings inside in the gallery. Provided the sun shines, I can't think of anything much better than that so I am keeping fin...read more

This weekend will be the last chance to catch the excellent Patricia Sadler exhibition. She suffered a little at the beginning by following in the wake of Percy Kelly - we sold all but three of his show and a few more as well - but she is now catching up fast. It is well worth taking a look. All ...read more

Everything's early this year. We also appropriately have a splendid new Fedden oil called Orange Poppies 30 x 22 inches dated 1989. It is a particularly good one - a mad clash of vibrant reds and pinks. You may have seen it before - we sold it some years ago - and now it has come back on...read more

The Percy Kelly Little Gems lived up to the name and sold out. There was a stampede on day one and likewise on the last day (Monday May Bank Holiday). The gallery has hardly been empty of visitors for 5 weeks and we could have sold many several times. I am so pleased that the catalogu...read more

It's definitely spring now in the Lakes. There are advantages in having a late Easter. The daffodils are over but there are plenty of lambs roaring around in the fields. The ospreys are back and it's warm. Come up and see us if you can. The Kelly exhibition is proving very p...read more

A small group gathered at 0630 Friday morning outside the gallery. Driving rain was hissing down. The Percy Kelly 50 Little Gems exhibition opened at 1030 and everything exploded. Telephone and mobiles were ringing, e mails flying into the computer and the gallery was milling with wet intrep...read more

It was on top of the wardrobe in the spare room. It was covered in dust. The artist Percy Kelly had given it to her for safe keeping in 1983. He died alone in Norfolk ten years later. She had forgotten about it until I turned up asking questions because I was writing his biography. The l...read more

Orange is the 'in' fashion colour this season filling the international cat walks and the like of Top Shop and New Look. We must have the most on-trend lambs in the country. Our local farmer has togged up the new-borns in little orange jackets and they are running about in the sunshine che...read more

It is pure self indulgence - to hang an exhibition of all my favourite artists. Angie and I had a great time yesterday hanging the gallery and I'm now off to Theatre by the Lake in Keswick to hang the rest there. It is proving to be a busy week. The gallery is now back to...read more

Our next exhibition, Curator's Choice, which opens 4th March is pure self-indulgence. It's a 2 venue show at both Castlegate House and the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick. It's 24 years since I opened the gallery in Cockermouth and over that time we have hung thousands of pai...read more

I am still loading it with information. I will keep adding news and anecdotes about what is going on up here in the most beautiful - and wettest corner of England. It will also be easier to keep it up to date - the old one was running out of control. Our mail list is now world wide thank...read more

Last Tuesday, the long upstairs room at Messums gallery at 9 Cork Street was heavy with the smell of flowers and buzzing with appreciation of the works of Percy Kelly which filled the room. This was no obscure northern artist creeping into the sophisticated London gallery scene. This was a triump...read more