Bob Richardson - A Life in Pastel

you [Music] why do I paint good question I suppose it's destiny I've always painted ever since I was knee-high to a grosser pets but in the days when I left school the only job as an artist was in advertising that's what anyone did I went teaching the two options well I think you've got to be what you are I mean I love Modern Painters I love Hockney obviously and bacon and you see in Freud I love them all I love the works but you've got to be what comes from within you and what comes from me my pictures I recently met a chap as a party and he went to school with and he said I remember you Barbara Jason you said you could draw us as well and I was that upset that I controls he's like you I had a happy childhood in Salford join the youth club and join the Boy Scouts like you do I was in the choir at st. Paul's choir and then from there progress in the army national service days joined the military band in Berlin that's where I met my wife and you won't believe me but I did have a proper job I was a director in advertising agency for a number of years and I started to go out weekends painting just for myself just for relaxation and I used to go with my wife and my kids who were quite young them and my wife used to go off into the countryside picking blackberries and whatever and I used to get my easel and paints out and just paint whatever I fancy doing this early sold for today's ones was purely for my own gratification because being a sulphate lad at that time there was only Lowrie in her irelia and one or two others my over friend out the Delaney who doing the pictures and I just wanted to do it for myself because the after nostalgia of the back 2 bucks and the terraced houses and what have you and I just did it for me totally and that accumulated over the years a number of pictures I had a number of successful exhibitions starting at Salford in 71 or 72 which were the exhibition was sold out too much to my surprise with the result of the exhibition I was getting to be more known in the newspapers and what have you and I on a second exhibition there three years later that very luckily another sellout exhibition I thought this is the time for me to make a break if I'm going to make one all my pictures at that time those early years were loyal yes I only introduced the past dolls because I was still working in the agency and to make more time because there was no drying time we passed though I introduced the pastels pastels are made from a Telkom powder based with the gesso to give it the form of a stick so it's quite hard but it also soft enough to go over and opaque enough to go back cover any of the dark colors well pasta is it's a very old paint medium this there's no half-tones so any color I wanted to cover there's a black here with this blue he will just cover that like that just no problem at all so I have to be careful when I'm doing a painting that I don't cover it over anything that I don't want to lose because it's so old peak and I can go for the fine line or as thick as I like but I can just use it like a monkey would use it to wig so it covers a multitude of sins and something that brooch can't always do I found that I had an affinity with the pastel which a lot of people struggle with because it's dirty and mucky you should always carry a towel and a wet cloth with you just to wipe your hands it keeps the pictures clean and they don't get muddy they get keep the freshness if you keep your hands clean they don't fade or they don't yellow they keep the permanence and once on the glass they'll stay forever really well this number of artists obviously number of artists I admire and work I love but I think I think the most profound artist in there was it early days of my my pictures of the Manchester and so it was definitely I don't follow his little pictures of Manchester how little gems it just jewels and I just loved them and we're very much inspired by them lolly was a pupil of Adolfo let's I met Larry on a couple of occasions the most memorable one was just before I gave up my proper job we ours is a gallery and open him a new gallery in King Street Manchester and there were a number of people there and you know Lowry was there and her O'Reilly and myself and we sat in the back of the gallery having a glass of wine and I was quite cocky III said to mr. Lowry everyone called him mr. Lowry has a sir I'm giving up my job in a couple of weeks time to paint full time and here now Riley looked over the glasses and looked at me and Ethel and Larry said to me G said you said you know you're gonna keep up a job I said so what I've got a try I said so don't try it now I'm never going to try this you know give it a go so he wished me luck he said he said I've always had a job I said I never knew that I said no yes said I collect rent for I can't believe it but yeah there was a nice few moments because shortly after that time a month or so later he was dead and it's the only opportunity to see the great money installs you got it got to make your mind or whether you going to be a landscape painter or a portrait painter and I chose the landscapes but yes portraits I can do figures I introduced figures into lots of my pictures and not many artists can do that not learning artists can Cokely figures yeah I was asked by a businessman much wisdom and who collected my pictures if I would be interested to go to Venice which had never been to do some pictures there and this was a the opening of a whole new will for me after sulfur de Manchester I mean the contrast is it's just chalk and cheese and on arriving in Venice I was commissioned to do several works when I was spent two weeks there on the Schiavoni in a wonderful hotel and the life was never the same after that I still loved it but he did not my eyes to Italy because Italy is a wonderful country particularly for artists for me anyway and I've done pictures of Florence Rome being lots of pictures of God and the Italian lakes and yeah to me is it saved my life as an artist because I I wouldn't be doing Manchester and Salford still today for two years on well I'm still ha I'm still at Salford loved I mean you can't take this off in the south of the lot and the love of my city and yeah in the exhibition that this exhibition I'm working on now I will be introducing some new pictures of Manchester and I will be of course since those days Salford Keyser's come along and it's a totally new world so it will be a new challenge for me to try and did something there to put in the exhibition to keep me abreast of the times over the years I've done God normally in the prints they were very popular in the seventies and eighties did lots of limited edition prints of pictures that I chose that people liked and I must have done thousands of signatures I bet no but about in the footballers and I've not done as many signatures as I was commissioned to do couple of pictures from Margaret Thatcher for a 70th birthday remember that going down to London to her offices in Mayfair and I had an enjoyable day with mrs. Thatcher she was then and she treated me really really nicely I wasn't expecting it but she was very good to me and she did enjoy the pictures because she wrote and told me afterwards she they were on her wall and I know from the fact that somebody had seen them on the wall so she judged she did have them I've met Sir Alex and Bobby Charlton no wonder were two occasions and in fact director is David Gill but one of my pictures not not so gong a couple year ago at the gallery inhale and and going back a number of years quite a number of years ago now I connected with United I was in the framers in in in Hume and in came Stevie Koppel in those days he was a popular winger and played for England at that time and the he said he liked my work and what I interested in doing a commission of you know his football ground for him I wasn't slow to refuse the Commission and I did this picture for Stevie Kapil and he was delighted with a took it away with him when he left Manchester United I still work a strict routine of nine nine two four nine two four oh and then after the four o'clock I go to the gym or for a swim but I still have a strict discipline and I think you've got to do to succeed in anything you've got to work although I love my work it's hard to get 60 or 70 pictures together and I've been doing it for 40 years it's a lot of work probably made my last one-man show I'm not getting any younger but it's something that gives me a spur and I'll get there but I am looking forward to it and meeting now hopefully people I've met or about the pleasure of meeting over the years and collecting my work yes [Music] you [Music] Clark art art for your future [Music]

Channel: ClarkArtLtd

Views: 123,200

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Id: Ez_2OYnqdBY

Length: 14min 33sec (873 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 28 2017