THE WYKEHAM GALLERY
26th October - 9th November 2024
Above: River Itchen Kings Worthy · oil · 49 x 32 cm
Front cover: Fonthill Brook March (detail) · oil · 39 x 53 cm
THE WYKEHAM GALLERY
A BRUSH WITH RIVERS
Tim Scott Bolton
26th October – 9th November 2024
OPENING DRINKS | Saturday 26th October | 12 – 2pm
Monday – Sunday, 10am – 5pm
All work can be viewed on our website under Exhibitions/Forthcoming. All work is for immediate sale.
High Street | Stockbridge | Hampshire | SO20 6HE 01264 810364 enquiries@wykehamgallery.co.uk www.wykehamgallery.co.uk
A BRUSH WITH RIVERS
Tim Scott Bolton has fished since he was a boy and the painting of rivers has played a significant role in his work as an artist. A river could be considered a thread that connects the different phases of his life. His pictures both stand alone in their own right and simultaneously convey a knowledge and understanding of the ways of a river, executed with an angler’s eye.
Luck has it that when painting a river there is often an opportunity to fish, but the two do not always coexist. Many a time the splash of a salmon or trout rising nearby has interrupted his concentration and the trance-like state which takes over when a painting is going well.
He considers himself to be a lucky man to be able to paint and make it his life. That urge to draw and paint has, from his earliest memory, been important to him but it took a while before he made it his career. He started as a land agent and while working in Kenya valuing farms, but painting in his spare time, he had his first exhibition at the Tryon gallery in
Nairobi in 1972. Eventually he became a full-time artist in 1984. Some thought it ‘a brave move’, but most considered it foolhardy for someone with three young children a dog and a mortgage. However, he has not regretted it for a moment, a new world of opportunity opened up and now in his reflective years, he has written several books. ‘A Brush with Rivers’ is partly autobiographical, a rich and amusing reminiscence of a fulfilled life drawing on his extensive diaries.
His love of landscape pervades his work and his first book, ‘A Brush with Brown’ gave him a perfect excuse to paint some of the great English country houses and parks.
Travel to him has been an elixir vitae and he and his wife have taken many painting tours to India and Europe. He has also accompanied HM King Charles III on three Royal tours in the near East and Europe.
He lives on an organic farm in Wiltshire where he and his wife, Tricia, started the Summerleaze gallery.
The angler heron-like silently waited until the evening rise started.
River Avon Enford oil · 18 x 24 cm
River Avon Upavon
watercolour · 46 x 54 cm
This is the northern end of the Salisbury Plain, painted with gouache on grey paper. The water meadows are extensively grazed by sheep and, to create a sense of space, I have contrasted the shaded foreground with the sun-drenched church beyond.
River Avon, Figheldean Shallows · oil · 35 x 61 cm
Avon
Mill · watercolour · 29 x 39 cm
Mill at Figheldean. Rivers were considered a major source of power and this mill is little changed since its prime in the 19th century.
River Avon near Durnford · oil · 25 x 39 cm
River
Netheravon
Gunville Cottages, now only a bridge over the river where there used to be a weir. This is a small oil painted on a hot summer’s afternoon.
A tranquil scene near Durnford where, on a June afternoon I did this oil. A wren, whose nest was in a willow tree next to where I was painting, forsook all fear and continued to feed her young a foot from my head.
River Avon Great Durnford
oil
25 x 48 cm
River Avon Gunville Cottages
oil · 20 x 45 cm
River Avon below Amesbury painted in oil. Note how, where the water meets the bank, the reflections merge between the two. I painted this as if the water’s edge did not exist because that is how I saw it.
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River Avon Fittleton oil
20 x 40 cm
River Avon West Amesbury oil
22 x 40 cm
River Avon Eel House Britford
watercolour · 27 x 37 cm
A view that might have been Constable’s. The Avon near Salisbury is dominated by the 404 foot spire of Salisbury Cathedral, the tallest in Britain. Painted in early June with the elder in flower.
River Avon Netheravon · watercolour · 35 x 50 cm
Fonthill Brook Ashley Wood watercolour · 50 x 70 cm
A great coat and mittens were worn on this frosty February morning.
Fonthill Brook, Ashley Wood Bridge oil · 26 x 36 cm
Flag iris in sun light and a gloomy bridge behind where lie large trout in awkward places.
Fonthill Brook Tisbury · watercolour · 50 x 70 cm
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Fonthill Brook
· watercolour · 33 x 50 cm
A peaceful pool most of the time, below disused hatches, becomes a noisy, splashy place on a hot summer’s afternoon when locals come to bathe.
Hatches
Fonthill Brook Quiet Corner
oil
30 x 56 cm
25 x 28 cm
River Itchen June
St Cross peeps at the Itchen like a wary angler. An oil painted on a moody day. I was thankful for my circle of shelter under a large umbrella when thunderous rain erupted from a heavy summer sky and I munched my picnic.
River Itchen St Cross oil · 25 x 50
River Nadder Compton Chamberlayne oil
17 x 38 cm
River Nadder Barford St Martin · watercolour · 45 x 70cm Barford St Martin in high summer.
watercolour · 19 x 28 cm
River Stour Sturminster Mill
River Test Stockbridge
watercolour · 33 x 50 cm
High summer Makes the trout lazy but the occasional tempting stir shatters the mirror like water which otherwise reflects the sky.
River Test Stockbridge with Footbridge
watercolour · 32 x 50 cm
The famous fishing hut at Longstock, on the Leckford water. The eel traps on the bridge are imported from elsewhere. A small oil painted in evening light, in June.
One of the most important factors determining the success of a fly is the degree to which the angler pins his faith on its superiority’ is inscribed in the interior of Halford’s picturesque fishing hut which huddles, abandoned and unloved, at the end of the National Trust’s municipalized river walk along the Test at Mottisfont Abbey.
River Test Halfords Hut Mottisfont · oil · 20 x 37cm
River Test Longstock Eel Trap oil 20 x 35 cm
River Test Evening · watercolour · 48 x 60 cm
Evening in high summer is the time to catch fish, especially after a hot, bright day.
River Test Mottisfont Abbey oil · 24 x 20 cm
The great mediaeval Abbey is reflected in the water where the great Halford used to fish.
River Test Elderflower watercolour
35 x 50 cm
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The mayfly are still hatching, but the lazy trout seem no longer to be interested on this June day.
River Wylye Norton Bavant
watercolour
48 x 75 cm
River Wylye, Stockton oil · 27 x 38 cm
This little oil was painted in July, when the swallows skim the water to feed their hungry broods. The unity of the picture is given by painting on a mid-tone, warmcoloured board. The river is a reflection of the sky and this creates a bright and airy feel.
River Wylye Stockton
oil
21 x 31 cm
River Wylye Bathampton Manor
oil
20 x 30 cm
