JAKE ATTREE
front cover
1 From Penistone Hill, Haworth £7,500
oil on canvas 102 x 102 cms 40 x 40 ins
right
2 P athway Across the Moors Towards Stanbury £2,500
oil on board 42 x 44 cms 161⁄2 x 171⁄4 ins
left
3 A Screen of Trees at the Edge of the Wood £4,500
oil on board 85 x 48 cms 331⁄2 x 187⁄8 ins
overleaf - opposite title page
4 T he Chapterhouse and Great East Window, York Minster from the City Walls £8,500
oil on panel 87 x 87 cms 34 x 341⁄4 ins
All prices stated will be subject to VAT at 20%
JAKE ATTREE 2017
www.messums.com 28 Cork Street, London W1S 3NG  Telephone: +44 (0)20 7437 5545
Jake Attree:
The Quiet Relevance of the Apparently Irrelevant Jake Attree, celebrated for his evocation of cities and landscapes, makes solid the airy castles of inspiration in paintings of rare integrity and depth. He is a formal painter, who values the construction of his painting equally with its subject. Thus he orchestrates stripes or patches of paint in quasi-regular patterns, sometimes deploying them like the tesserae of mosaics, and to this extent his work may be regarded as abstract. Of course, all great art, whether Poussin or Picasso, partakes of both
6 Large Clouds Over the Moors above Haworth £4,500
oil pastel 52 x 78 cms 201⁄2 x 303⁄4 ins
5 The Path Over the Moors £4,500
oil pastel 52 x 78 cms 201⁄2 x 303⁄4 ins
abstraction and representation (it can be persuasively argued that even the most severely geometric of artists, such as Mondrian, base their work in the perceived world), and if the bias in the last century or so has been in favour of abstraction, this is more than likely a misreading of a highly complex situation. In fact, the artist and writer Timothy Hyman has recently published a book entitled The World New Made: Reshaping Figurative Painting in the 20th Century which seeks to redress the
7 Pathway Across the Heather £4,500
oil pastel 52 x 78 cms 201⁄2 x 303⁄4 ins
8 The Path Over the Moors £9,500
oil on canvas 120 x 160 cms 471⁄4 x 63 ins
balance in favour of figuration. His central thesis is how an artist organises and interprets reality, and this must be as relevant to Jake Attree as it was to Mondrian himself. Attree requires close identification with the subject, and with the making of an interpretation of it. But real knowledge and understanding are not the inevitable result of fact-gathering. No amount of research can produce insight: the raw material must be transformed through the person of the artist, transmuted from reality into art. Attree’s intimate relationship with his subject
10 Baile Hill and the City Wall £3,000
oil pastel on paper 52 x 65 cms 201⁄2 x 255⁄8 ins
9 The River and City of York from Baile Hill £3,000
oil pastel on card 45 x 64 cms 173⁄4 x 251⁄4 ins
is everywhere apparent in the structures, unities and perceptions of his paintings. Yet familiarity does not breed contempt: for the artist, intimacy with a subject is a form of reverence and awe. And as we are shown why a thing – be it ancient building or hawthorn tree – should be so marvellous to look at, so we are made aware of its beauty and the ramifications of that beauty, which resonate with the personality and experience of the artist, raising echoes and vibrations with our own preoccupations. For the authority with which Attree paints comes from the inside,
11 Montpelier Parade – Harrogate £3,000
oil pastel on paper 54 x 74 cms 211⁄8 x 29 ins
opposite
12 Moors over Haworth, Storm Passing £7,500
oil on canvas 102 x 102 cms 40 x 40 ins
from a long-considered and distilled response which clearly surpasses a mere record of the exterior of things. An interesting comparison with Attree’s tessellated surfaces – as may be found, for instance, in some of his Ancient City series – is in the “mosaic” style practised to such potent effect in the 1940s and 50s by the classical surrealist John Armstrong (1893–1973). Like Attree, this blocky divisionism was not Armstrong’s only stylistic strategy, but he employed it in tempera and in oil with
14 Storm over the Moors £3,000
oil pastel 52 x 78 cms 201⁄2 x 303⁄4 ins
13 Sunlight and Shadow, Haworth £3,000
oil pastel 52 x 78 cms 201⁄2 x 303⁄4 ins
great dexterity and vivacity. At its best, this square-brush technique, with its controlled dabs of colour, brings a splendid textural animation to the picture surface, with patches of paint laid down on a darker ground, rather like the bark on a London plane tree. The optical vibration thus set up between ground and surface brings a new dynamism and luminosity to the imagery. However, Attree doesn’t build his paintings in quite as orderly or regular a way as Armstrong did, and the varying distance between his squares of colour allows greater formal flexibility while encouraging a more subtle and individual emotional response on the part of the viewer.
15 Storm Passing over the Moors £3,000
oil pastel 52 x 78 cms 201⁄2 x 303⁄4 ins
opposite
16 Storm Over the Moors £9,500
oil on canvas 120 x 150 cms 471⁄4 x 59 ins
Attree himself rejects the influence of mosaics (as did Armstrong, revealingly), and traces this distinctive application of small units of paint to such diverse sources as the ‘magic square’ paintings of Paul Klee, and a thorough immersion in Cezanne, as well as careful study of Rembrandt and Jasper Johns. To which, of course, should be added the pointillism of Seurat. Other key influences and inspirations have been Bruegel, Pissarro and Nicolas de Stael, that great Ecole de Paris artist of
18 The River and the City of York from Baile Hill £4,000
oil on panel 64 x 84 cms 25 x 331⁄8 ins
17 St George’s Gardens £3,000
oil pastel on greyboard 45 x 64 cms 173⁄4 x 251⁄4 ins
luscious slabby abstracted paint, not as well known in England today as he was 50 years ago when Attree was growing up. (But very much, in my opinion, due for a revival.) Attree is knowledgable and eclectic. He’s been looking at Constable, for instance, since he was 12 years old, an influence that can be discerned in the potency of his glorious skies. He is very much a Northern European painter, and has stated an affinity with the Belgian Constant Permeke – another artist little-known to the gallery-going English public. Likewise, Bomberg
19 The Wooded Hill £3,000
oil pastel on grey board 45 x 64 cms 173⁄4 x 251⁄4 ins
opposite
20 Storm Haworth £7,500
oil on canvas 102 x 102 cms 40 x 40 ins
is a key figure for Attree, as can be best seen in his drawing, which similarly recalls the vigorous linearity of Martin Bloch. But he also admires Braque and Morandi, and the tight tonal range of Gwen John. Then again he must have looked closely at the Camden Town painters – and in particular Gilman and Ginner. In his use of deep impasto Attree is close to the School of London painters Auerbach and Kossoff, and perhaps especially to Kossoff. (The density of paint produces a literal sense
22 Distant Horizon, Haworth Under Snow £2,500
oil pastel over watercolour & emulsion 38 x 51 cms 15 x 20 ins
21 Rocky Outcrop at Haworth, Snow £2,500
oil pastel over watercolour & emulsion 38 x 51 cms 15 x 20 ins
of weight which in turn implies seriousness of purpose.) But he is also aware of the golden light in some of the Euston Road paintings of William Coldstream or Graham Bell. Through a critical but appreciative awareness of a great breadth of sources, Attree makes something that is entirely his own. The subject has come and gone in Attree’s work. In the past, he has attempted to refine the image out of the painting, while (as he says) ‘retaining the emotional impact the image initially inspired’. (Like the grin without
23 Early Snow, Haworth £2,500
oil pastel over watercolour & emulsion 38 x 51 cms 15 x 20 ins
24 The Waterfall Walk by the Bronte Bridge £9,500
oil on panel 120 x 150 cms 47 x 59 ins
the Cheshire cat, to recall Lewis Carroll.) So the building or view that inspired a picture might be buried deep in heavily impastoed paint, the marks layered over the figurative beginnings in increasingly minimal and abstract impulses. To look at it from another angle, Attree’s true subject was not the city of York or the moors above Haworth, but his own inner landscape, which could only find expression through the medium of a subject observed in the world around him.
26 Light Passing Across the Landscape (study) £2,200
oil on board 31 x 38 cms 12 x 15 ins
25 Storm Clearing (study) £2,200
oil on panel 31 x 38 cms 12 x 15 ins
Some of Attree’s best works are carried out in oil pastel, a medium which combines the substance of paint with the linear potential of graphite or charcoal, and through which he can readily model in colour and line at the same time. He has devised a method of applying the pastels in layers, which are then fixed and re-worked, building up a depth of pigment that begins to resemble what he more expectedly achieves in paint. His work is founded upon the primacy of drawing, and it is through pencil or charcoal studies that he will first begin to explore
27 Storm Over the Moors (study) £2,200
oil on panel 31 x 38 cms 12 x 15 ins
28 Large Clouds Over the Moors Above Haworth £9,500
oil on canvas 120 x 160 cms 471⁄4 x 63 ins
a subject that fascinates him. The activity of drawing is not a display of skill or autobiographical memoranda, rather it is a perpetual struggle between what the artist feels in response to a subject (and understands by it), what he newly sees (each time something slightly different), and what he is currently capable of expressing. His thoroughly worked surfaces might be seen as some kind of equivalent for the medieval stonework of an old minster town, yet he also paints the surrounding
30 Quarry at Penistone Hill £3,500
oil on panel 51 x 59 cms 20 x 231⁄4 ins
29 Hawthorn Tree £2,500
oil on board 42 x 44 cms 161⁄2 x 171⁄4 ins
air and light in the same calm and solid manner. This is his vehicle, his mode of painting, his language. It is not an equivalent but a means of conveying knowledge, intuition, passion. Although Attree’s approach is deliberately unemotional on the surface (and thus intendedly drained of autobiography), it is nevertheless rich in hidden meanings. His working method is also a
31 Bracken and Heather £4,500
oil on panel 59 x 86 cms 23 x 34 ins
opposite
32 An Extensive View Across an Ancient City £9,500
oil on panel 121 x 121 cms 47 3⁄4 x 47 3⁄4 ins
metaphor for memory, and the ways in which it acts on direct experience – events are elided, inessentials discarded, details edited out. A painting is the product of hundreds of distinct moments of looking, all of which inform it, though no single one could be said to be the actual trigger for it. In the more obviously landscape paintings, Attree often features a number of trees – say five or ten – which are also five or ten strong vertical accents with which to
34 Weeping Aspen, St George’s Gardens £3,000
oil pastel on greyboard 64 x 45 cms 251⁄4 x 173⁄4 ins
33 York Minster from the City Walls £1,200 graphite 38 x 54 cms 143⁄4 x 211⁄4 ins
construct an essentially geometric composition. He has a powerful impulse towards the rectilinear, but needs also a balancing emphasis on sensual tactility. Building brushstroke on brushstroke, solid and tangible, his is a direct engagement with the physical stuff – the coloured mud - of paint. His paintings have an all-over quality, the surfaces activated from edge to edge, packed with mark and texture. For instance, look at his snow paintings. Snow reveals the structure of landscape in a different way: accentuating some forms, draping and disguising others, rearranging emphasis and balance in an extension of a place’s identity. Suffused with snow-light,
35 Bradford £2,000 charcoal 60 x 78 cms 233⁄4 x 303⁄4 ins
36 The Minster’s Central Tower £6,500
oil on board 72 x 91 cms 281⁄8 x 36 ins
these paintings emphasise Attree’s habitual stillness and quietude of image, while introducing something of the pregnant mystery of Caspar David Friedrich. The most recent landscape paintings plumb a new vein of lyricism, not just essaying the storm-tossed top moors, but a wider seasonal remit of light on verdure, with the russets of autumn varying the greys of winter. Attree has long had a feeling for the red/green polarity, but a new range of vernal greens and combinations of less-expected colours
38 The Edge of the Path, Snow £2,200
oil pastel over watercolour & emulsion 38 x 51 cms 15 x 20 ins
37 The Waterfall Walk by the Bronte Bridge £4,200
oil pastel 52 x 69 cms 201⁄2 x 271⁄4 ins
enlighten his paintings of looking across the moors. Several of these spacious pictures feature bracken or heather, seen usually from high viewpoints under big skies. We feel we can see for miles. Sometimes, for contrast, Attree brings us up short against what appears to be a sheer rock face, as in the powerful painting Quarry at Penistone Hill. Equally impressive is another sculptural image, Stones on the Moor. These new paintings add an extra dimension to Attree’s achievement: a warmer side of the landscape which is yet just as intransigent and unyielding as it ever was.
39 Penistone Hill Near Haworth £4,250
oil pastel 52 x 78 cms 201⁄2 x 30 3⁄4 ins
40 Beacon Hill from North Bridge, Halifax £7,500
oil on board 82 x 105 cms 321⁄4 x 411⁄4 ins
Attree has a need to state things as they are rather than dramatising them. He says: ‘I like to think they are considered, contemplative paintings that speak about revealing apparently prosaic moments.’ And he goes on: ‘One of the things I like to think the paintings convey is the quiet relevance of the apparently irrelevant.’ This is the key to Attree’s work: not only does he revel in the unassuming and overlooked, he creates a fabulous but low-key apotheosis of the ordinary. As poetry is
42 Looking Across the Moor £2,200
oil pastel 43 x 56 cms 163⁄4 x 221⁄8 ins
41 Fulford Ings £2,500
oil on canvas 39 x 50 cms 151⁄2 x 195⁄8 ins
everywhere for those capable of finding it, so are subjects for paintings. Jake Attree finds both and moulds them into cool, calm episodes of deep reflection: paintings which are powerhouses of thought and feeling which will continue to give out energy and inspiration long after the work of more flashy contemporaries has exhausted itself and lost all relevance. Andrew Lambirth Writer and art critic
43 Pathway Over the Moors Towards Stanbury £2,200
oil pastel 42 x 60 cms 161⁄2 x 231⁄2 ins
44 Storm Passing Over the Moor £5,000
oil on panel 61 x 81 cms 24 x 32 ins
46 Figures Beneath the West Door II £4,500
oil on panel 61 x 71 cms 237⁄8 x 28 ins
45 The Pale Tower II £6,500
47 York Minster: Five Figures £4,500
oil on panel 122 x 60 cms 48 x 235⁄8 ins
oil on panel 67 x 75 cms 261⁄8 x 291⁄2 ins
48 The Pale Tower £9,000
oil on board 80 x 120 cms 311⁄2 x 471⁄8 ins
2003 2002 2000 1999 1998
JAKE ATTREE Born:
13 October 1950
1974–1977 Royal Academy of Arts Creswick Prize (Landscape) Landseer Prize (Figure) David Murray Scholarship Bronze Turner Medal 1968–1971 Liverpool College of Art 1966–1968 York School of Art
EXHIBITIONS Selected One-Person Exhibitions 2017 Messum’s, London 2013 Messum’s, London 2012 Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden Hester Gallery, Leeds Hartlepool Art Gallery 2011 Hart Gallery, Islington New Schoolhouse Gallery, York 2010 Huddersfield Art Gallery 2009 Hart Gallery, Islington George Smith, Chelsea Shadbolts Solicitors – Loan Exhibition 2008 Dean Clough, Halifax 2007 Winchester College Hart Gallery, Islington Manor House, Ilkley 2006 York Minster, Inaugural Exhibition for Creation: Artists working for York Minster 2005 Hart Gallery, London 2004 Dean Clough, Halifax (Retrospective)
Bruton Gallery, New York Hart Gallery, London 39 Essex Street, London Bruton Gallery, Leeds Cartwright Hall, Bradford Dean Clough, Halifax Huddersfield Art Gallery The View Gallery, Liverpool Mid-Pennine Arts, Burnley Michael Richardson Contemporary Art, Art Space Gallery, London Batley Art Gallery, West Yorkshire 1997 National Lotteries Charities Board, London 1996 New York Paintings and New York Drawings, Dean Clough, Halifax (two exhibitions) “City Visions”, Leeds City Art Gallery Michael Richardson Contemporary Art, Art Space Gallery, London 1994 Michael Richardson Contemporary Art, Art Space Gallery, London Dean Clough, Halifax 1991 Leader’s Office, Civic Hall, Leeds (Loan Exhibition) 1990 Sheffield University Art Tower Selected Mixed and Two-Person Exhibitions 2015 ‘Elemental North’, Messums, London. 2012 Views of York, Fairfax House, York 2008 Meyer Brown, London London Art Fair 2007 39 Essex Street, London 2006 Collyer Bristow, London; Dean Clough Halifax (Curator’s Choice) 2002 Bonhams, Leeds (Hart Gallery Show) 2001 Bruton Gallery, Leeds (London and Leeds) 1999 Rowe & Maw, London 1997 Northern Light: The Ninth Provident Financial Triennial Exhibition (Banqueting Hall, Whitehall) 1996 Hull, St Katherine’s Dock Development; The Crescent, Scarborough
CDXXII
1995 City Art Gallery, Hartlepool 1994 RIBA “Site Gallery”, Leeds (two exhibitions) 1993 Leeds Centenary Exhibition – Leeds University Gallery; “A City Made Visible” – Leeds City Art Gallery 1990 Cadogan Contemporary Art, London 1989 “Exchanges” – Kunstlerhaus, Dortmund; “Art ‘92” – Generals Huis, Maastricht 1987 New Grafton Gallery, London 1986 Thackeray Gallery, Kensington Square, London (also in 1985 and 1984) 1985 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (also in 1975) 1984 GLC Spirit of London Exhibition (Highly Commended) 1982 Serpentine Gallery, London – Summer Show 1
COLLECTIONS York Art Gallery; Bradford Museums & Galleries; Leeds City Council; City of Dortmund; Hartlepool City Art Gallery; Sheffield University Fine Art Society; Calderdale Museums & Galleries; Paintings in Hospitals; Nuffield Trust, London; Provident Financial, Bradford Private and corporate collections in Great Britain, USA, Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany and Sweden opposite
49 Ancient City II £3,500
oil pastel 60 x 60 cms 233⁄4 x 233⁄4 ins
back cover
50 Hope Hill from Saltaire £4,500
oil on board 81 x 81 cms 313⁄4 x 313⁄4 ins
ISBN 978-1-910993-13-2 Publication No: CDXXII Published by David Messum Fine Art © David Messum Fine Art
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