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Our Winter Exhibition is now online, with most works to be hung over the course of the next week. This will be an evolving showing, with new works arriving weekly following our travels around the UK, and sold works heading off to new homes. Amongst others, we’ve acquired works by Percy Kelly, Bill Peascod, Ben Levene (RA), Kate Nicholson and Anthony Whishaw (RA) as well as receiving new paintings from Craig Simpson and Stefan Orlowski.

Firstly, as usual, we’ve been busy beavering away travelling around the UK acquiring new works of art to bring back to the gallery. In truth, looking back at the last 2-3 weeks, it’s been a little portrait-tastic, with works by Philip Naviasky and William Johnstone as part of the mix. We’ve also acquired the most wonderful 1928 portrait of a young lady with a tennis racquet by the go-to society portrait painter of the day, David Jagger.

We had the pleasure this week of visiting a client with a wonderful art collection and bringing back to the gallery seven works; three by Norman Cornish and four by L S Lowry, all now listed in our New Work section of the website. Taking the latter first, of the four works by Lowry, all of which have impeccable provenance, three are quite wonderful works on paper, including one of the finest of drawings, Industrial Scene, from 1951.

We spent yesterday rehanging the gallery with a raft of new work, ably assisted by a splendid young chap getting some work experience. Works may be seen in our Autumn exhibition page or in our Latest Work section (albeit the latter with a slightly curtailed list of those by Rebecca Swainston). As part of the new-mix, Alex Hain, a young man who we’ve been proud to work with now since 2015, has produced four wonderful works, three being large energetic and immediate Scottish coastal paintings, largely painted out in-situ, which given their sizes is no mean task.

We’ve had a busy last couple of weeks, up and down the UK, acquiring new works for the gallery by Percy Kelly, John Bellany RA, John McNairn and Carel Weight RA, to name but a few. Firstly, two medium-large paintings by Cumbria’s own Percy Kelly. Both from the same private collection and originally acquired from Castlegate 15-20 years ago or so.

We’ve just received a new eleven-painting body of work from Alice Campbell; a small, focused body of work that Alice has been working on for us since mid-late last year; all are now live online and in-gallery. We’ve worked with Alice since 2018; a 2017 graduate of the prestigious Duncan of Jordanstone art school, Alice won a Royal Scottish Academy travelling scholarship to Florence that same year and has gone on from strength to strength since.

A brief update about new works in-gallery, both those we’ve sought out on our travels, and those directly from some of our contemporary artists. The full list of new work maybe seen in our New Works for Summer exhibition or within Latest Work.  We have works acquired from private collections from both Chantal Joffe (RA) and Norman Cornish, together with works from the likes of Joan Eardley and David Hockney (RA) complimented by contemporary works directly from Helen Fryer, David Storey, Craig Simpson and Halima Cassell.

Firstly, a reminder that the doors open to our latest exhibition, The Appleby Brothers, on Saturday morning; the show is now fully installed and some in-situ images maybe seen towards the bottom of the Exhibition Page HERE. We also have a walk-round video which maybe seen on Facebook or Instagram. This is a show for two young contemporary artists, ploughing a furrow for painting in the modern era; very contemporary yet obsessively and painstakingly produced.

We’re very proud to be going live online with The Appleby Brothers exhibition, a collection of twenty eight new works by two very talented brothers, including three joint collaborations. Both Louis and Alex studied at the very well-respected Wimbledon College of Arts, with Louis going on to obtain his MA at the Royal College.

We’ve been very active over the last three weeks, acquiring new works for the gallery, all may be seen HERE. We have work from the 1980s by the late Bill Peascod, nude studies from both Duncan Grant and Sir Terry Frost, a very rare oil by Ivon Hitchens from 1966, exploring the figure, together with a raft of other acquisitions from the length and breadth of the UK, including our ever-popular affordable Mid Century Modern Alternatives selection.

Following on from our Coast to Coast exhibition, we’ve had a full gallery rehang, with new works both contemporary and Modern British (20th century) covering the walls, all may be seen in our SPRING EXHIBITION  which runs through April and into May. Artists on show include Frank Auerbach, Percy Kelly, Patrick Heron, Alex Hain, Ronald Ossory Dunlop, Joan Eardley and John McNairn, amongst many others including our affordable Mid Century Modern Alternatives selection.

For anyone in London or wishing to travel to London from 22-26 March, we’ll be exhibiting at the Connect Art Fair at the Mall Galleries. Attached you’ll find a complimentary ticket for two which you only need show a screen image of at the door, or you can download via the fair website, so do feel free to use. It’s a small great quality art fair very much in the heart of London, so do come along if able.

Lawrence Quigley, Coast to Coast is now live online and may be viewed HERE. In addition to the listing online, we also have a sixty-eight page digital catalogue which may also be viewed HERE. This is the culmination of one artist’s decades-long desire to travel the Coast to Coast walk, made famous by Alfred Wainwright, painting the route over four seasons, from St.

After a wonderful London Art Fair, we’ve not let the grass grow under our feet; we’ve been busy. Just some of the new acquisitions may be seen on our Latest Work section of the gallery website. Included within these are two of the very highest quality paintings by the late Theodore Major, an astounding Van Gogh portrait by Hughie O’Donoghue (RA) directly from the artist’s studio together with a large 1964 oil titled Mainly Greens by the late Patrick Heron, one of the most influential of post-war British artists.

We can go a year or more without acquiring any works by the late Percy Kelly, arguably one of the most inventive and talented of artists to have emerged from Cumbrian in the last century. In our last email we mentioned acquiring three works, bizarrely from the US; they didn’t remain unsold for long. Now, wonderfully and unexpectedly we’ve just acquired another three, a little closer to home this time, from a collection in Kendal.

As we race toward the new year, the London Art Fair returns to its January schedule and flings open its doors on Wednesday 18th to Sunday 22nd. It was pushed forward to April earlier this year due to Omicron (can you believe that was at the start of this year!?), so we’re pleased it’s back in its traditional January slot.

We’ve continued our travels across the UK and beyond in search of works to bring to Castlegate, in fact it’s been a very busy last two weeks. Most may be seen HERE, including three wonderful larger-scale works by Percy Kelly, one of the most compelling oils by Winifred Nicholson, a museum quality early oil by Ken Howard (RA) plus new works by the very talented Craig Simpson, amongst others.

We’ve been rather busy these last two weeks. New-to-the-gallery are works by the likes of Keith Vaughan, Theodore Major, Norman Cornish, Joan Eardley, Alistair Grant and Hughie O’Donoghue (RA), amongst others. All may be seen on our Latest Work page. In addition, we’ve also been active acquiring affordable last-century works for our Mid Century Modern Alternatives collection, all of which may be seen HERE.

Not a week goes by it seems when we’re not galivanting (as my mother would say) around the UK in search of new works for Castlegate. We have much to see, including new pieces by David Storey, Carel Weight (RA), Winifred Nicholson, Cathy Lewis and Stefan Orlowski, as well as additional affordable 20th century works for our Mid Century Modern Alternatives collection.

As we've mentioned previously, we're having a wonderful time on our seemingly constant art-travels. Whilst discovering works by our more usual "names", the fun is also in acquiring works from the 20th century ("Modern British") by perhaps lesser known artists but with that certain "something" about them, bringing them back to Castlegate to live amongst their much higher profile stablemates, but at a much more affordable budget.