Edward Beale: Doing the Lambeth Walk
Growing up in a working-class family in South London provided a nurturing environment for artist Edward Beale, who has a new one-man show opening in October. By Viv Lawes
F
illing an entire wall of the terraced house that London artist Edward Beale (b.1950) shares with his partner Claire Edwards is a painting of the Lambeth rooftops viewed from the terrace beyond. It was painted on this very spot nearly thirty years ago, just a stone’s throw from where Beale was born and brought up. Gnarled peaks of impasto define the grey and red brick buildings that throb with life, the tight structure of the composition anchoring it to urban reality. This painting encapsulates a slice of Beale’s life, during which time he has become an increasingly respected and successful figure on British figurative art scene. “I sold this work through Agnew’s in
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1982,” he says. “Barings Bank bought it. After the firm collapsed in 1995, it was eventually returned to Agnew’s. I decided to buy it, so it was back on my living room wall twenty years after I first sold it.” The style of this particular painting is more contained than the fluid, joyful broad strokes of colour Beale uses nowadays. His palette is easy to recognise as the viewer’s eye jumps across the stacks of paintings in his basement studio at the property: bruise-like purples, cerulean blues, peach and ochre, and reds from vermilion to crimson. Some of the paintings in the studio go back to his student days at Camberwell College of
Art and the Royal Academy, while others are still drying. Among them are the thirty-five paintings that Beale is exhibiting in his forthcoming oneman show at Petley’s Gallery, London. All of those destined for the show have been painted within the last year, and include landscapes, still-lifes and a single nude figure painting. The flower paintings are reminiscent of Van Gogh – one of his heroes, along with Chaim Soutine and Matthew Smith. They ache with colour, the petals forcing their way across the picture surface with strong, directional brushstrokes, while the nude figure has the same life force as that revealed in Beale’s superb drawings, where broken and striated lines gang up to create solid, living beings. The most biographical of the works in the show are the landscapes, which are eloquent in describing Beale’s present life as an artist: although he is anchored to London, he spends much of the year
travelling to favourite haunts Spain and southern France. He goes to each location, never moment in order to capture landscapes that entrance him.
in the Hebrides, is prolific when he wasting a single the soul of the
opposite: White lilies against blue 30x24 inches below: Cork oaks on the road to Oms 24x34 inches
Friends provide the space to make this possible, a happy arrangement that has grown from Beale’s special relationship with his Cork Street art dealer, Roy Petley. It is not the relationship of artist to businessman, but one of artist to artist: selftaught Petley set up his eponymous gallery in 2003 on the back of his own commercial success as a figurative artist. The meeting between the two men was fortuitous. Beale reveals, “A friend told me about Roy, so I went to his gallery and left some drawings. He was in France at time, and when he came back he visited me in the studio; he liked what he saw and bought several works outright. This is rare in a dealer and proves that they believe in your work.” Petley’s instinct was
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followed up with a solo show for Beale in 2004, with the gallery hosting wildly successful annual exhibitions ever since. Beale is very clear about what he wants to achieve personally in his paintings: “I want them to be joyous, life affirming. With the landscapes, it doesn’t matter where you are. It doesn’t have to be a sunny spot in the South of France – it could be the London docks in abysmal weather. It’s all about catching the atmosphere of the day, getting across how amazing it all is. For me, painting isn’t about angst but about celebrating the fact that I’m in a position to enjoy the world and engage with it by capturing it in a work of art.” For the viewer the appeal of Beale’s paintings also lies within the life force they emit. This is partly down to his working methods: he always paints en plein air and aims to finish a painting within one day. “I always consider that I’ve just got that day and that surface to work with,” he says. “Once I’ve started I don’t stop; I just keep flying either until the light’s gone and I cannot do any more, or, if I’m lucky, the magic just happens and it’s done. All of a sudden things may start to gel, then you go into another gear and the work is painting itself. The only problem is then recognising the moment to stop. Just because they are made quickly, it doesn’t mean they’re superficial.” Another compelling quality comes from the materials he uses. Ever since he was a student he has used oil paint by R J Stokes of Sheffield, a loyalty he shares with figurative luminaries Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. He originally used their paints because they were cheap, but the characteristic paste-like texture of the paint soon became a defining quality of his style. While many suppliers of household paints have moved across to water-based products, Stokes has continued to manufacture these oil paints with artists in mind. “They are not like any other oil paints,” he says. “The way they are produced means that there is a greater viscosity and tactile quality. I like the way the unpredictable quality in the paint opens up new possibilities within the painting.” It is this quality that means his work is always impastoed – even when he has scraped away some of the layers to reveal the crimson blocks of the compositional layers underneath. The quick drying nature of the paint is another reason why he works quickly, since only a day’s drying time makes the material tacky and difficult to manoeuvre. “I love to push the paint around – even a few moves can totally change the whole 38
look of the painting.” He keeps the working time open for longer by applying a layer of pure linseed oil across the primed board support – he never works on canvas, preferring the smooth surface of board – which prevents the primer from sucking out the oil form the paint itself. The joy Beale has in the very act of painting is palpable. He lives what he describes as an ordinary life, shying away from self-publicity and thanking his good fortune for having a family that supported him in his quest to be an artist. His father was a docker and expectations among his peers growing up in Lambeth were limited. “My father didn’t want me to follow in his footsteps. When I told him that I intended to be an artist, he just said, ‘Come on then, there’s an art shop over there’.” School was a less nurturing environment as teachers and careers officers encouraged him to apply for manual jobs, including that of petrol pump attendant and typewriter mechanic. Although he took his art A Level two years early,
he never gained additional qualifications, instead putting his energies into going to Camberwell College open classes until he was old enough to apply for a place there. “I remember going into school on the day my acceptance letter came through. One of the teachers lectured me on the fact that I never came to classes. I just waited until he’d finished and then got the letter out.”
opposite: Pink oriental lemons -30x18inches
lily
with
above: Mountain track near La Losa, Castile 24x36 inches
Having already enjoyed a forty-year career, his only concern is for the future of figurative art in Britain. Institutional taste has, for a generation, been focused on conceptual art and the academic critical theories that lie behind it. However, institutions do not tell the whole story and the fact that his work has enjoyed commercial success is proof that Britain still has a market hungry for both implicit skill and evocative imagery. The Edward Beale exhibition runs from 5 October at Petley’s Gallery, 9 Cork Street , London, W1S 3LL. Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7494 2021. www.petleys.co.uk 39