From Dillons' First Floor Window
(Oil on board) Private Collection.
We went out to a Private View last night at a gallery new to me - the Bewicks Gallery Space in Gateshead Civic Centre. We'd been invited to a preview of work by Tom Bromly OBE, Dean of Newcastle Polytechnic (the forerunner of Northumbria University) Faculty of Art and Design until his retirement in 1992.
I liked the show very much, although I preferred his more designed/abstracted compositions to the straightforward studies and paintings of trees. I chatted to an old friend for a while and then, as we were taking a second glass of wine for a second turn around the gallery, someone came up to me and said:
"You're Harry Bell, aren't you? I bought a painting of yours a long time ago and I still love it!" We were joined by his wife who said "You're Harry Bell! You painted my favourite painting!"
The oil painting was From Dillons' First Floor Window and it was sold in 1995 from my first solo show. It was always a favourite of mine and here was the man who bought it twenty years ago, still enthusing about it now.
Don't you just love it when that happens?
Nothing like a nice bit of egoboo after twenty years - and that *is* a very striking work.
ReplyDeleteBill
Thanks, Bill. It made my night.
ReplyDeleteI love that painting!! And can see why they bought it and still love it.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Shirley!
ReplyDeleteA classic Bell! Those Claude skies!
ReplyDeleteThank you Anon. You're not Turner, are you? He liked Claude.
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic! What a great complement to a great artist from another.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that, Joyce.
ReplyDelete