Feature: Exhibition - Sunny days and dark visions

Published: 2 December, 2010
by JOHN EVANS

WHEN Prince Charles wrote The Old Man of Lochnagar, a children’s book which raised cash for his charitable trust 30 years ago, it was illustrated by eminent artist, designer and architect Hugh Casson.

Sir Hugh, who died in 1999, helped nurture and develop the prince’s interest in watercolours and two of the royal works feature in a show today at Mall Galleries.

The story was of an old cave-dweller beneath Lochnagar, the mountain close to the Balmoral estate, and the Prince of Wales’s “Lochnagar 2009” bears testimony to the area’s continuing importance to him. Neither this nor his second work, “Abandoned cottage on the Island of Stroma, Caithness”, is for sale unfortunately. 

But virtually all the 450 artworks in this open exhibition of The New English Art Club are. It features a feast of contemporary British figurative art with prices from under £200 for an etching to £30,000 and more, with wide choice of media. 

Detailed and uplifting oils by Islington artist Melissa Scott-Miller include “Islington School”, “Culpeper Gardens” and “A sunny day in Islington”, together with a Liverpool Road scene, instantly recognisable to locals, even down to the ubiquitous estate agent’s board.

Martin Langford, who studied mezzotint and etching at Central St Martins, declared himself “very pleased” with his dark vision, “Tescopolis”, on display just as the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment warned against so-called Tesco-towns of supermarket-built housing, schools and parks. “Tescopolis” “…obviously a play on Metropolis, is a city full of Tescos,” says Langford, whose print took months of hard labour, inspired after his daughter’s school failed to receive computer equipment for vouchers it had expected from the firm. 

There are many gems, but among the stand-outs are those of Essex-based Peter Kelly, pictures of Regent’s Canal, “Light, mist & reflections”, and “The dark house”.

A triangular oil, “Grandfather painting, Jessica bell-ringing”, by Anthony Green RA is a kind of bird’s-eye, almost fish-eye sweep, which takes us across three corners of a rural hamlet with a painter working at its centre.

Charlotte Halliday is “Keeper” of The New English, which held its first exhibition in 1886 and now boasts some  80 members. The St  John’s Wood artist’s pencil and watercolours here include the fine “Brick and Stucco, Marlborough Place”.

• The New English Art Club annual open exhibition, Mall Galleries, The Mall (near Trafalgar Square, SW1), until December 5, 020 7930 6844 www.mallgalleries.co.uk