VAL ARCHER
Val Archer is one of the most perceptive and meticulous of contemporary painters. Her intensity of observation re ects a lifetime looking at the ideas surrounding what painting is, has been and can be.
Her paintings are generously coloured and deeply attentive to form and texture. Flowers, fruit and fabrics are set against complex, resonant surfaces to encapsulate feelings for places and cultures.
Val was born in Northampton, England, and studied at Manchester College of Art and the Royal College of Art.
Her rst solo exhibition was at the long-established Kunsthaus Buhler in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1975. She exhibited with Fischer Fine Art, London, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and with Noortman, Maastricht, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Val’s commissions have included illustrations and paintings for the Sunday Telegraph, BBC Good Food and illustrated books, the most notable being a collaboration
with the Italian food writer Anna del Conte, The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina. In the early 1980’s she co-created the Tate Gallery’s award-winning exhibition Paint and Painting about the history of art materials and of colour and technique in painting.
Travel has long informed and inspired Val’s work. Latterly this has included Libya, Portugal, The Netherlands, Southern Africa, Myanmar and Iran. In recent years, she has divided her time between her studios in London and Tuscany, recording the everyday natural and man-made objects that appeal to her.
In 1998, in recognition of Val’s position as a distinctive voice in contemporary still life painting, Chris Beetles Gallery staged its rst solo exhibition of her work. This close and exclusive association has continued to-date with regular exhibitions at its St James’s gallery of her latest paintings.
With pleasure features important new work and selected paintings from the past 25 years.
Chris Beetles Gallery Solo Exhibitions
1998Val Archer
2001Val Archer
2007Val Archer and the Art of Cucina
2011Val Archer: Touching the Surface of Time
2012Val Archer: An Italian Summer
2014Val Archer: Travels with my Art
2016Val Archer: The Still Moment
2019 Val Archer: Place and Culture
(loan exhibition at Nunnington Hall, Yorkshire)
All works in the catalogue are signed with initials and painted in oil
Prima dipingere, poi mangiare
First paint, then eat
5
This painting just evolved, I have to be excited about all the elements, flowers, vase, background and foreground. I used the fabric because it reminds me of water and the amaryllis were so intransigent, I wanted to throw against them something that was broken and fluid. The pomegranates have mosaics inside them like the background.
It started with the majolica tile background and I wanted to put pattern against pattern. The washed-out blue of the tiles contrasted with vast quantities of crazy, structural agapanthas from our London garden. The glass vase was to show full structural length of stems.
6
2 (opposite) AGAPANTHAS IN GLASS VASE 39 ½ x 24 ½ inches
1 (above) AMARYLLIS AND POMEGRANATES 39 x 27 inches
7
A friend lent the wonderful eggy-shaped celadon vase and I just put it down in the studio next to the faceted one and they were such a contrast I had to paint them. The mosaic is a floor from some Roman villa I saw somewhere ...
8
4 GREEN JUG AND TILES FROM RAVENNA 10 x 8 inches
3
VIBURNHAM IN GREEN VASE 21 ½ x 15 inches
5 (opposite) SUNFLOWERS AND TILES FROM LISBON 29 ½ x 21 ½ inches
It’s hard painting sun flowers after Van Gogh, you think, how dare I?
9
I found this extraordinary jug in Arezzo market, I loved its pear-shaped angularity and the anarchy of the hydrangea flower heads.
10 6 TIN OLIVE OIL JUG WITH PLATE OF PEARS 19 ½ x 14 inches
Both are associated with Iran, the wonderfully ornate tiles and being in Shiraz when the yellow roses were tumbling everywhere.
11 7
26
RAMBLING ROSE AND PLUM BLOSSOM FROM SHIRAZ 41 ¼ x
inches
These milk pails were simply our wall decorations one year in Italy.
12 8 NASTURTIUMS
30
9
30
IN MILK PAIL
x 22 inches
PETUNIAS IN MILK PAIL
x 22 inches
13 10 PLUMBAGO AND YELLOW ROSE 30 x 22 inches
The background is a rusty yellow table top and was my starting point, the jug is from Arezzo market and I just loved the colours.
14 11 STRIPED JUG WITH ARTICHOKE 22 x 15 inches 12 ROSEHIPS IN RUSTY OLIVE OIL JUG 15 x 16 ½ inches
‘Cappelli Di Preti’ are priest's caps in Italian (the Spindle plant). The terracotta vase
I found in Pissignano's monthly market.
15 13 CAPPELLI DI PRETI 30 x 22 inches
Jug from a potter who runs a shop in the centre of Cortona and it called to me from the shelf. The stripey material is from our front door curtain when I was a kid and the rest is just gorgeous orange things. Pomegranates from our tree and the ‘zucca’ from our neighbour Patrizia.
15 (opposite) ROSEHIPS IN CORTONESE VASE 30 x 22 inches
16 14 STILL LIFE
PENGUINS 22
30
WITH
x
inches
Again about a sense of place. The vase which I found in an antique shop in Cortona, is a particular design of pottery associated with the region and the rosehips were out at the same time I bought it.
17
18 16 GERANIUM AND GOOSEBERRIES ON MOSAIC 20 ½ x 14 ½ inches
19 17
PINK CHERRY BLOSSOM ON MOSAIC 29 ½ x 22 inches
Walking in the hills is my favourite thing to do and I walk every morning passing marvellous meadow grasses beside the road. The farmers don’t use pesticides so there are so many wild flowers, amongst the wheat that has escaped from farmer’s fields. The wind is always blowing so that is why they are leaning. I didn’t want to confine them in a vase, I wanted them to be as free and full of air as they were when I saw them each morning.
20 18 MEADOW 22 x 15 inches
21 19 AUTUMN LEAVES AND APPLES 37 x 25 inches
22
22 BLUE FLOWER 11 ½ x 3 ¼ inches
20 NASTURTIUMS 11 ½ x 3 inches
21 PETUNIAS 11 ½ x 3 ¼ inches
23 23 VERBASCUM 11
3
24
11
3
25
26
¼ x
¾ inches
PINK JAPANESE ANEMONE
½ x
¾ inches
PLUMBAGO 11 ½ x 3 ¾ inches
HAWTHORN BERRIES 20 ¼ x 5 inches
24 27
WINTER ROSES, SUMMER ROSEBUDS 30 x 22 inches
28 (opposite) COW PARSLEY AND DIANTHUS 30 x 22 inches
I enjoyed the balance and contrast of ‘la mezzina’ [Tuscan well bucket] a galvanised solid bucket with the airy, transparent, delicacy of the cow parsley and dianthus.
25
Mimosa is spring in Italy for me, frothy, funny, frivolous flowers.
26 29 MIMOSA 25 x 19 inches
I am really drawn to patterns but I don’t want the painting to be entirely flat, so I try to balance the pattern with something that is in the round and tactile.
27 30 TEA FOR TWO 13 ½ x 16 ½ inches
Lemons from the tree that Italian friends bought me for my birthday years ago.
LEMONS
28 33
15 x 11 inches
32 (above) PEACH WITH TILES 8 x 6 inches
31 (above left) POMEGRANATE ISFAHAN 8 x 8 inches
29 36 PEAS 15 x 11 inches
35 (above right) LANGOUSTINE ON FISH MOSAIC 8 ¼ x 12 inches
34 (above) LANGOUSTINE 8 x 8 inches
‘Kelvedon Wonder’ grown both in the garden in Italy and my father’s allotment.
We grew them both and loved the
together.
30
37 (above) SQUASH AND SMALL AUBERGINE 8 x 8 inches
38 (above right) TWO POTS OF MARMALADE 6 x 8 inches
39 (right) CHERRIES IN BRASS BOWL 12 x 8 ¼ inches
shapes and colours
Eat with your eyes.
These things are all in my kitchen in Italy and we were so proud of the tomatoes that we grew that year.
31 40 BRASS BOWL WITH TOMATOES 21 x 28 ¼ inches
32 41 JUG OF BUTTERCUPS 15
11 inches
x
42 (opposite) BASKET OF PEARS 22 x 14 ½ inches
I was in Italy and thinking about Sienese paintings. It was such an arid summer. The trees were so dry, the bleached, dead leaves were blowing off, all becoming autumn before autumn.
33
There were clouds of crackly Honesty growing by the side of the road and I had to paint them.
34 43 RED GLASS JAR AND HONESTY 8 x 8 inches 44 HONESTY IN TIN BATHS 29 ½ x 39 ½ inches
35 45 POPPYSEED HEADS AND FORSYTHIA 30 x 22 inches
These are exactly the colours just before autumn in Italy, when there is a slight mist in the air which turns everything a hazy greeny gray. Heather grows against the lichen covered rocks on the hillside and the lace echoes the intricate structure of the heather.
36 46 HEATHER 27 ½ x 20 ½ inches
I was trying to get the feeling of what it was like in Italy last October. The light coming through my studio window and the old olive picker’s basket, lent to us by our neighbour, Ugo, to pick our own olives for the first time.
37 47 OLIVE PICKER'S BASKET, TUSCANY 29 ½ x 22 inches
In the church of San Francesco in Montefalco, there is a stunning fresco cycle by Gozzoli, tucked behind a corner against a mouldering wall is this beautiful brocade chair with puny, little twisty legs that don’t look right. I added the bum-like peaches.
38 48 BROCADE CHAIR AND PEACHES 30 x 22 inches
39 49 BOWLS AND PLATES 40 x 56 inches Exhibited: ‘Val Archer’, Chris Beetles Gallery, London, 2001
with pleasure ... works from the last 25 years
40 1998 ‘Val Archer’, Chris Beetles
October 1998 50 THE PEN TRAY 7 ¾ x 12 inches 51 MAMBAZO 26 x 35 inches
Gallery,
2001
‘Val Archer’, Chris Beetles Gallery, October 2001
41
52 VINE TOMATOES 12 x 14 ½ inches 53 SHEEKEY’S LANGOUSTINES 23 ½ x 29 ½ inches
2007
‘Val Archer, The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina’, Chris Beetles Gallery, October 2007
42
54 BEANS AND PULSES 16 x 21 ¼ inches
SAN DANIELLE HAM
29 x 19 inches
Illustrated: Anna Del Conte and Val Archer, The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina , London: Conran Octopus, 2007, page 98
43
55
2011
‘Val Archer. Touching the Surface of Time’, Chris Beetles Gallery, May 2011
44
56 FRUTTA 30
22
x
inches
57 (opposite) DISEGNO 30 x 22 inches
45
2012
‘Val Archer. An Italian Summer’, Chris Beetles Gallery, May 2012
46
58 PERSIMMONS AND FREESIAS 17 x 21 ½ inches
EGGS
FOR ZABAGLIONE AND MAJOLICA TILES
22 ½ x 30 inches
47 59
Illustrated: Anna Del Conte and Val Archer, The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina , London: Conran Octopus, 2007, pages 54-55
2014
‘Val Archer. Travels with My Art’, Chris Beetles Gallery, June 2014
48
60
22
19
WHITE TULIPS
x
¾ inches
61 (opposite) CHERRY STONES 29 x 21 inches
49
2016
‘Val Archer. The Still Moment’, Chris Beetles Gallery, October 2016
50
62
21
YELLOW BOWL, RED APPLES
¼ x
23
inches
63 (opposite) QUINCES IN BRASS BOWL 29 ½ x 21 inches
51
2019
‘Place and Culture, Val Archer at Nunnington Hall’, North Yorkshire, February 2019
64 QUINCE AND APPLES ON COSMATESQUE 14 x 21 inches
65 (below) FIGS, APPLES AND WALNUTS 21 ¾ x 30 inches
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