Jean Bell

Liverpool Rooftops

Oil on board, signed and dated '1974' lower right Image size: 31 x 48 inches (79 x 122 cm) June 1987 Exhibition label on verso Original frame Provenance The Artist's Estate Exhibited "Raymond Booth, A Memorial Exhibition", The Fine Art Society, London, 12th August - 9th September 2016, no.62 "Raymond Booth, In the Wild", The Fine Art Society, London, 02 May -29 May 2017, No. 11 Booth was above all a great recorder of the natural world who could translate his observations of the Yorkshire countryside, its fauna and flora, into compositions of a beauty and intensity rivalling the greatest of his Victorian predecessors. This intense, yet intimate, landscape depicts a section of woods around Booth's home in Alwoodley, Leeds, where he spent much of his time. Here Booth has worked slowly to develop the densely worked, close-up, landscape in which the woodland and meadows have acquired a poetic quality through his sensitivity to season, weather and time of day. Raymond Charles Booth Intensely private, and possessing an obsessive work ethic and passion for the natural world, Raymond Booth earned a reputation as one of the greatest botanical painters and illustrators, despite rarely leaving his Yorkshire home. Eschewing the more fashionable modernist principles of the early mid-twentieth century, he instead produced beautiful, intense compositions in oil of British flora and fauna, that rival the very finest Victorian followers of the genre. Raymond Booth was born in Wetherby, West Yorkshire, on 8 August 1929, to John Booth, a member of the local police force, and his wife Margaret Edna. When Raymond was still a young child, the family moved from their first home in the crowded streets of central Leeds, to Fearnville Place, in the leafy suburb of Roundhay. His father was a keen rambler and impressed upon Booth from an early age a respect and understanding for the British countryside. Just a short walk from his childhood home was Roundhay Park, the second largest urban park in Europe, comprised of over 700 acres of parkland, lakes and woodland. It is likely that growing up so close to such an environment had a profound influence on him, helping to develop what would become a lifelong obsession with natural world. Booth’s early passion for nature was surely heightened by the number of summer holidays he spent on an estate near Winterslow, Wiltshire, where an uncle worked as a gamekeeper. In 1946, at the age of 17, Booth won a scholarship to study at Leeds College of Art. However, his studies were put on hold during two years of National Service, which he spent largely with the RAF in Egypt, guarding the Suez Canal. He returned to Leeds College in 1949, graduating in 1953. While at Leeds College, he had frustrated his teachers and fellow students by insisting on working in a more traditional, precise style, and rejecting the more Modernist principles that were being promoted. As a result, his teachers convinced him that he was unlikely to earn a living as an artist, and encouraged him instead to study for a teaching diploma. Shortly after graduation however, he was diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis, a consequence of his time in Egypt, and was admitted to a sanatorium, where he would stay for the next six months. Years later, Booth would joke ‘I am one of the few people who can say, “Thank God for TB”’ (The Times obituary, 9 September 2015), as his months of recuperation gave him countless hours to develop his skills as a botanical artist. This enforced focus on his work gave him the confidence to submit a number of his drawings to a botanical art exhibition in London organised by the Royal Horticultural Society. These works attracted the attention of a number of prominent horticulturalists, including Dr Harold Fletcher, the director of the RHS’s gardens at Wisley, Sir George Taylor...

Oil on board, signed and dated 1968 verso Image size: 23 x 36 inches (58.5 x 92 cm) Original gilt frame Evan Charlton was born in London. He studied at ...

John S. Smith 1921 - 2010 Fishguard to Rosslare Oil and gouache on board, signed lower left Image size: 35 × 22 inches (89 × 56 cm) Contemporary art deco style frame This wonderfull...

Howard Jenkins Flourished 1920 - 1950 Art Gallery, Portico, Dark Evening Oil on board, signed verso and inscribed Image size: 12 x 10 inches Contemporary frame

Original oil on wooden oak panel of a traditional figural landscape of an incoming storm with figures fishing in the foreground. No visible signature. Condition is excellent. Wonder...

"Annie Nobles Miller" Abstract Florida landscape oil on board painting Hand signed lower left Inscribed on verso St. Lucie County. Measures: Board 24"H x 30"W; Framed - 32"H x 38"W. Annie Miller was a member of the Indian River School of Painting, which was not a formal school but was a group of mostly African-American Florida working class people who wanted to paint. Following is the explanation of that school and its participants. Indian River School is a name applied to Floridian artists in the 1950's and 1960's. They were heavily influenced by nature. Most of the artists in this movement were African American. Their work is characterized by quick strokes and eschews traditional methods of paintings. The main influence for the group was a man named A.E. Backus, a Bohemian white man who mentored the group of young black artists. The group used to congregate in his studio and learnt to paint from 'Beanie' (as he was called) as a way out of their lower class labour jobs. Their work was powerful, dramatic yet captured the serenity and beauty of the Florida Although the exact count of artists mentored by A.E. Backus remains unknown, experts estimate it to be around 20 individuals, many of whom he supported through college. Albert Ernest "Beanie" Backus (1906–1990) was famous for his vivid, naturalist Florida landscapes capturing a fast-vanishing Florida wild lands. Backus would come to be seen as the seminal Florida landscape painter, and others who followed would emulate him. Primarily of the Indian River and Everglades areas of Florida. Backus was a Native Floridian artist of great importance recreating scenes of Florida's sky, rivers, ocean, back country, unpredictable weather, clouds, and birds. Born in Fort Pierce, FL to a family of talented boat designers and builders. His "Uncle" Reg Goodwin helped Backus as a young painter go to the Parsons School of Fine Art in New York in 1924. He was referred to as “Florida’s painter laureate,” and the “Dean of Florida’s landscape painters.”In addition to his influence on the Florida Highwaymen painters (Alfred Hair...

An oil painting inspired by the stormy sea at the breakwater in Bude, Cornwall. The rough sea is conveyed through thick paint applied spontaneously with a palette knife. The colour p...

"Untitled" by Thane Gorek (Colorado, US based) is an oil on board depicting an aspen grove with jewel toned leaves. This piece is framed and ready to hang. Thane Gorek is an artist...