Against The Grain prospectus

AGAINST THE GRAIN MALCOLM YORKE

AGAINST THE The Life and Art of RigbyGRAIN Graham

The Life and Art of Rigby Graham MALCOLM YORKE

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WATER

That watercolour of the church which Graham tossed into the boot of his car takes its place in a very long line of others. No two are alike (just look at the variety of skies, or the different ways he depicts standing water), yet all are instantly recognisable as being from Graham’s hand. View enough of them and you will begin to see recurring elements.

The first impression they give is of vivid colours and strong darks, especially if seen indoors by artificial light. Traditional eighteenth and nineteenth century watercolours tend towards browns and ochres, partly because their colours were derived from organic or mineral sources and partly because many have faded with time.

England has always been a green land but pure green is not much in evidence in these works, and any green mixed from the primaries yellow and blue always loses some of its brightness because mixtures are duller than their separate components. Today we have many chemically-based oil and watercolour paints which are brighter and less fugitive, especially a whole range of chrome yellows, strong blues, and viridian and emerald greens which Girtin or Turner could only have seen in their dreams. Van Gogh was the first painter to realise the full potential of these late nineteenth century discoveries. Graham, like Van Gogh, often chooses to use these paints full strength and unmixed (‘rich’ and ‘bright’ are his favourite adjectives for colours), and in idiosyncratically unreal ways. The result is that people accustomed to the British watercolour tradition, or to seeing genteel offerings at the Royal Academy Summer Show, recoil in shock on entering a gallery of Graham’s work. Where, people ask, did he find all these tart greens and citric yellows and pepper reds in our grey English scenery?

Why is the sky scarlet or green, the rocks blue, and the sand so primrose? In short, his watercolours put the stress on the colour, not the water. Perhaps the questioners should look again, or in a different way for, as Graham says, ‘Many people see something and react immediately. You don’t learn anything by reacting. People learn by looking and listening.’ These are pictures you need to

27 double page spread, actual size

Goldmark is proud to announce the publication of a new book

AGAINST THE GRAIN: The Life and Art of Rigby Graham

by Malcolm Yorke.

Not only is he impelled to produce work, he has to find a hard way to do so – in a cramped bedroom, with makeshift equipment, by a painfully laborious method, using a woody medium which resists him all the way, or painting in the damp field where we first encountered him at the beginning of this book. It can truly be said of Rigby Graham, both the man and the artist, that he has always gone against the grain.

(Malcolm Yorke has written biographies of Eric Gill, Keith Vaughan, Matthew Smith, Edward Bawden and Mervyn Peake)

Published 1st February 2015

DELUXE HARDBACK Edition of 425 336 pages, 140 illustrations, cloth covered with dust jacket Special launch price £25 (Normal price £35) plus p&p

COLLECTOR’S HARDBACK Edition of 75, (of which 70 are for sale) Cloth covered with inset image, numbered, housed in a slipcase with four signed and numbered original lithographs and two dvds. 336 pages, 140 illustrations Special launch price £345 (Normal price £500) plus p&p

This prospectus is actual size

To order: Buy online at www.goldmarkart.com Telephone 01572 821424 Email info@goldmarkart.com Write to us at the address below

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