A LIFE IN COLOUR
PAINTINGS: 1959 — 2019 A five-week exhibition to celebrate the life & works of Norman Gilbert (1926–2019)
2ND OCTOBER — 7TH NOVEMBER 2020 Art to inspire the imagination & enrich the soul
This catalogue was produced to coincide with the third solo showing of work by Norman Gilbert with Tatha Gallery
Foreword
TATHA GALLERY
Norman Gilbert’s legacy lives on. Norman always said that he had spent a lifetime devoted to painting – people, places, patterns, plants – but his work is much more than that. Each and every incredible painting by Norman tells us a rich and colourful story of relationships where love and time is interwoven within a painterly jigsaw. If Norman were here, he would probably just smile at this in wonder and say that he just liked to paint. Throughout his career he came across many pitfalls along the way, the life of an artist isn’t easy, but Norman’s vision was resolute, his tenacity strong and we thank him for that. The 29 paintings on show at Tatha are a testament to his care and dedication to his subject and ideas and are a celebration of Norman, a gentle and humble man. He conjured beautiful and moving moments with interlocking colour that find both rhythm and form. His vitality and originality shine through in every piece and we are taken on a visual journey of vibrant delight. Norman’s work brings joy and energy to all those who experience it. These works are truly unique.
WOODYARD IN STILL LIFE Oil on Board, 66 x 74 cm, 1959, Cat. 1
PAUL Oil on Board, 76 x 91 cm, 1963, Cat. 2
Through his courageous seven decades as an artist Norman experienced different degrees of success. In the early days he was rejected by the Glasgow School of Art for not treading the same fashionable path of the day, he was deemed unteachable. Later, in 1957, he had some success in London showing alongside Jacob Epstein, David Bomberg and Christopher Nevinson in the prestigious Leicester Galleries. W. Gordon Smith produced a Scope documentary on BBC Scotland in 1974. It was in 2018, when he was 92, that Norman’s name hit the papers and became an overnight global social-media sensation. His show at Tatha meant that years of previously unseen work could now be celebrated and the BBC Scotland Loop programme made a film about his life and works. Both his shows at Tatha Gallery sold out and his work and legacy lives on and is being enjoyed in many countries around the world. Working closely with Norman over the years has taught us many things. Norman passionately yet quietly believed in his practice and despite all the setbacks persevered through thick and thin. It is a valuable lesson to us all. He was at his happiest when painting and this shines through. It feels very poignant to be hosting this show in the year of his passing, knowing that these paintings are now finite, and his vision has been recorded in perpetuity. We once again feel very lucky to have another incredible body of work which will lift the spirits and enrich the soul. Thanks go to Norman’s sons who have continued to support their dad’s life-long mission. HELEN GLASSFORD & LINDSAY BENNETT Gallery founder & directors
What a Life. What a Gift. MARK GILBERT
We are grateful to be able to celebrate our Dad and his lifetime’s work with this, his third exhibition at Tatha Gallery. However, it is also bittersweet to write this introduction as he is no longer with us; he died on December 19th last year at the age of 93. In his studio, his last picture still sits, unfinished, on his easel in the Glasgow terrace where he lived for the last 35 years. This retrospective presents work from the 1950s right up to his later still lifes, which are being exhibited for the first time. Dad was many things, husband to our late mother Pat, father to myself, Paul, Bruno and Danny and grandfather to Katy and Murphy. He was also, in his time, a sailor, a pig man, a scenery painter and an art teacher. Over time, these roles informed and fuelled what he was most of all, an artist, a dedicated, passionate and wonderful artist. Dad chose to paint, correctly assuming it would be a vocation that would sustain him for life. The world he recorded was intimate: his family, friends and their surroundings, in the settings of our homes on the south side of Glasgow and on holidays in the Highlands or France. From these sources, he created a joyful world of colour and beauty – one writer many years ago commented: ‘It’s always carnival at the Gilberts’, a line often quoted ironically at Dad by our Mum. However, his devotion to his family is mirrored in his work – each and every painting and drawing was an act of love and compassion for the people he painted and the world he experienced. As such, Dad’s pictures are a tender and affectionate testament to his life and the relationships that nourished him. The development of the pictures over the years parallels the changes and events in his life. His early paintings seem to resonate with the grey, muted tones of post war Britain. These panels are unembellished, depicting domestic settings that I often felt chimed with the sensibilities of playwrights like John Osborne and the other “angry young men” who focused on the personal and intimate aspects of working-class Britain in the 1950s. The smaller, uncomplicated pictures gently evolved, over time, into larger vivid compositions, their colours clashing and melding within linear, patterned and decorative structures. These later
pictures seem very un-Scottish in style and potentially echo his roots in Trinidad, where he was born in 1926, to Scottish parents. Permeating his whole oeuvre is his unique vision resulting from years of dogged dedication and commitment to his craft and practice. His subjects are often highly coloured figures, woven into equally vivid patterned spaces. Although the people are easy to perceive and are the focus of attention, they are rendered with the same weight of line, colour and flat texture as the setting in which they are depicted. This rigorous evenness of treatment can be disquieting for those in search of greater physical or emotional form to their figurative paintings. Nonetheless, it makes for complex, yet coherent compositions where every element is, as Dad described it, at peace with the rest of the picture. The paintings are generous, open hearted and full of optimism. He began each picture believing it could be his best, yet characteristically, he recognized he could do little to control how people would respond to his work. I often reflect how we as a family took the pictures and the act of sitting for him for granted. My brothers and I grew up in houses where there was always a studio in which Dad would spend most of his time, quietly working. We all sat for him as he drew us. Sometimes he’d dress us in his own checked trousers and striped rugby tops. More often than not we’d be pictured together or with Mum, friends and girlfriends. Being drawn was a constant part of our lives. We all spent innumerable hours sitting for him in the silence of his studio, the quiet punctuated by the squeak of his charcoal being dragged across the paper, creating the clean deliberate lines of his studies. As a child, the moment he announced he’d finished his drawing, I’d turn and dash from the studio before he could change his mind. Later, when I started attending Glasgow School of Art myself, I’d sit with Dad after he’d finished and we would discuss the drawings he’d just made and the composition that was gradually being constructed on the easel. I also painted him. Portraits of both Mum and Dad featured in
my degree show at GSA in 1991. After I graduated, I continued working in a studio in Glasgow. For the following nine years, it was not uncommon for Dad to sit for me in my studio in the morning and for me to sit for him in his in the afternoon. As we worked, we talked about our pictures and contrasting methods. He would puzzle over my liberal ‘turgid’ use of paint and the squalor of my studio, his being a pristine space he swept every day. In later years, when I moved to the US and then Canada, we would talk about our work during the multiple Skype conversations we would have each and every day. Sitting at our computers, we would view each other’s work through the screen and discuss what was working and what wasn’t. And we’d talk about my late mum, exchanging anecdotes that were poignant but often filled with humour and laughter. Paradoxically, these conversations were often triggered by discussions of the extraordinary drawings he made of her as he kept vigil during the last week of her life, which transformed his own deeply private experience into shared depictions of love, caregiving, end of life and bereavement. They taught me more than anything else about the healing power of art. He cherished these drawings and the memories they generated about Mum, who had done so much to support him over the years. Reflecting on the images, he poignantly stated: “At one point I did say, there’s no point in doing them because I can’t show her them. I can’t ask her what she thought of them.” I also know this feeling, for I too have lost my favourite most trusted audience and affectionate critic. Mum died in 2016. The trio of paintings he created – Chair, Chair II and Chair III – stand comparison with anything he ever did but are instilled with a unique pathos and poignancy. They echo the compositions he did of her in the years before she died, but now her Parker Knoll chair is empty, draped in the same patterned blanket that first appeared in his pictures in the 60s. These works, along with the drawings, were recently published in a book Pat, End of Life Drawings by Norman Gilbert. The media coverage these drawings of Mum received, and the popularity of the BBC Loop film made about his life and work
(which has been viewed seven million times online, not a few times by Dad himself) brought him letters and messages from admirers around the world. It also coincided with two sellout exhibitions at Tatha Gallery. The success was hugely gratifying if slightly bemusing; clearly, though, he loved the response his work was now receiving. Meanwhile, the artist who sought to make every picture better than his last was succeeding in spades; his work through his eighties and nineties and, perhaps particularly, after Mum’s death, becoming ever more intricate, cohesive and “at peace”. We are delighted that this celebration of Dad and his work is here at Tatha. The relationship that flourished so late in his career with the gallery and, especially, with Helen and Lindsay was quite special. He looked forward to their studio visits and took great pleasure in the enthusiasm and care they took in working with him and the paintings. He also enjoyed seeing through their fresh eyes his older paintings, many of which had barely seen the light of day. I think this had a profound effect on Dad, enabling him to reappraise earlier pictures and, ultimately, a lifetime’s work. Dad’s legacy lives in the body of work he leaves, paintings that testify to the importance of relationships and love as witnessed through his unique passion, vision and spirit. That legacy will live on beyond us all. What a life. What a gift.
MARK GILBERT September 2020
DINING ROOM Oil on Board, 81 x 122 cm 1965, Cat. 3
ASLEEP IN A CONSERVATORY Oil on Board, 79 x 122 cm 1966, Cat. 4
MAKING TISSUE PAPER FISH Oil on Board, 122 x 74 cm 1966, Cat. 5
DYMPHNA AND VIANNI Oil on Board, 122 x 88 cm 1967, Cat. 6
GIRLS, STILL LIFE AND PICTURE Oil on Board, 85 x 122 cm 1968, Cat. 7
BOY AND GIRL BATHERS Oil on Board, 122 x 86 cm 1968, Cat. 8
FOUR GIRLS AND MARK Oil on Board, 122 x 86 cm 1970, Cat. 9
SANDRA’S RED VAN Oil on Board, 81 x 122 cm 1976, Cat. 10
THE WHITE ROCKING CHAIR Oil on Board, 122 x 76 cm 1976, Cat. 11
PATTERNS IN BLUE AND RED Oil on Board, 122 x 76 cm 1977, Cat. 12
PARTY Oil on Board, 122 x 86 cm 1978, Cat. 13
FIGURES AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIR Oil on Board, 122 x 76 cm 1978, Cat. 14
KALEIDOSCOPE Oil on Board, 122 x 86 cm 1979, Cat. 15
PAT AND DANIEL Oil on Board, 122 x 81 cm 1979, Cat. 16
BOY ON A BICYCLE Oil on Board, 122 x 76 cm 1979, Cat. 17
CARAVAN Oil on Board, 86 x 122 cm 1979, Cat. 18
FIGURES WITH BLACK AND WHITE BACKGROUND Oil on Board, 86 x 122 cm 1983, Cat. 19
FIGURES SITTING ON THE EDGE OF A TABLE Oil on Board, 122 x 76 cm 1986, Cat. 20 Opposite BACK SEAT OF THE CAR Oil on Board, 91 x 89 cm 1986, Cat. 21
MARK AND BARBARA II Oil on Board, 122 x 76 cm 1989, Cat. 22
THE WHITE CAR Oil on Board, 86 x 122 cm 1992, Cat. 23
MARK AND BARBARA IN THE ATTIC Oil on Board, 86 x 122 cm 1992, Cat. 24
PAT AND MARK WITH BRASS TABLE TOP Oil on Board, 122 x 81 cm 1993, Cat. 25
STEPHANIE Oil on Board, 81 x 122 cm 2000, Cat. 26
PLANTS AND PATCHWORK Oil on Board, 122 x 86 cm 2019, Cat. 27
TWO TABLES AND PLANTS Oil on Board, 86 x 122 cm 2019, Cat. 28
Norman was born to Scottish parents in Trinidad in 1926. After studying at the Glasgow School of Art he pursued a career in painting and it quickly became his life’s work. His work has touched the hearts of many people worldwide and will continue to do so. He leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of a life in colour.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
U.K. MEDIA COVERAGE
2018, 2019, 2020 Tatha Gallery, Newport on Tay 2020 Koppe Astner, Glasgow 2016 The Sutton Gallery, Edinburgh 2010 Howden Park Centre, Livingston 2006 Gallery Gora, Montreal, Quebec 1998 Lloyd Jerome Gallery, Glasgow 1992 Eden Court Theatre Gallery, Inverness 1981 & 1989 Drian Gallery, Marble Arch, London 1976 Education Gallery, City Art Gallery, Leeds 1975 MacRoberts Centre, Stirling University 1974 Talbot Rice Centre, Edinburgh University 1973 Ansdell Gallery, London 1967 & 1969 Traverse Theatre Gallery, Edinburgh Festival 1967 & 1970 Upper Grosvenor Galleries, London
2018 BBC Scotland’s Loop, ‘The Unteachable Artist’ documentary 2016 The Evening Times, Susan Swarbrick, ‘Glasgow artist Norman Gilbert on celebrating 65 years of his work’ The Herald, Susan Swarbrick, ‘Scottish artist Norman Gilbert on a new exhibition spanning 65 years of his work’ The National, Nan Sport, ‘Artist Norman Gilbert celebrates his latest solo exhibition’
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2003 Fresh Art Fair, Business Design Centre, London 2001 Art for Europe, Scotland House, Brussels 2001 Fresh Art Fair, Business Design Centre, London 1999 Richmond Hill Gallery, London
U.K. PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
1989 Hertfordshire Education Authority 1974 Stirling University 1970 Leeds Education Authority 1967 Kelvingrove Art Galleries, Glasgow
2012 Pollokshields Heritage feature 2003 The Glaswegian, ‘Norman’s not Normal’ 2003 The Times Lifetime, ‘Portrait of a Stubborn Artist’ 2001 Classic F.M. radio feature with Natalie Wheen 1998 The Herald feature 1996 BBC Radio 4’s Afternoon Shift feature with Felicity Finch 1992 W. Gordon Smith, Scotland on Sunday, ‘Spectrum’ 1989 The Scotsman feature 1974 BBC Scope feature with W. Gordon Smith 1970 Pat Gilmour, Art & Artists feature 1967 John Bradshaw, Vogue feature
THREE CHAIRS AND PLANTS Oil on Board, 86 x 122 cm 2019, Cat. 29
A LIFE IN COLOUR CAN BE VIEWED ONLINE:
tathagallery.com/exhibitions/a-life-in-colour
Tatha Gallery: 1 High Street, Newport-on-Tay | www.tathagallery.com helen@tathagallery.com & lindsay@tathagallery.com | 01382 690800 No part of this catalogue may be reproduced without permission All artworks copyright the Estate of Norman Gilbert Photography by Enzo Di Cosmo
Published by Tatha Gallery, designed by CREATE CREATE (davidcass.art/createcreate) ISBN 978-1-9161029-2-7