Peter Prendergast (artist)
Encyclopedia
Peter Prendergast was a Welsh
landscape
painter. After the death of Sir Kyffin Williams in September 2006, he was recognised as the leading landscape
painter in Wales.
in Glamorgan
. His father was a Roman Catholic from Ireland
who sought work as a coal
miner
in Maesteg
in south Wales after the 1916 Easter Rising. His two older brothers attended the local grammar school
, but he was sent to the local secondary modern, where his art teacher, Gomer Lewis, recognised his artistic talent. With support from the County art adviser, Leslie Moore, he won a County art scholarship to study at the Cardiff School of Art in 1962, despite having no formal academic qualifications.
He moved to the Slade School of Fine Art
in 1964, where he studied under Sir William Coldstream, Robyn Denny, Francis Bacon
, Jeff Camp, and Euan Uglow
. His tutor was Frank Auerbach
. He won the Nettleship Prize for Figure Painting in 1967. He met his future wife, Lesley Riding, in his last year at the Slade, and they were married in 1967.
at Reading University with Terry Frost
and Claude Rogers with a view to becoming a teacher. There, he met fellow student and landscape painter Len Tabner who remained a close friend in later life.
He and his wife moved to Bethesda
in 1969, a village near Bangor
and close to the Penrhyn Quarry
. He taught part-time at Liverpool School of Art until 1974, then at a local school, and then at Coleg Menai
, but he concentrated more on developing as an artist. He specialised in paintings of the Penrhyn slate quarry, which he described as "the biggest man-made hole in Europe, like Bruegel's Tower of Babel
, but in reverse", and of Snowdonia
. His early works have a bruque Expressionist style, almost Cubist. He painted similar views of the towers in Manhattan
on a visit to New York
in 1993.
He won prizes at the National Eisteddfod in 1975 and 1977. Examples of his paintings are owned by the Contemporary Art Society of Wales, and the Tate Gallery
. For some years his work was shown by Agnew's gallery in London, culminating in a touring exhibition; the foreword to the exhibition catalogue was written by Sister Wendy Beckett
, who described him as "a superb colourist and a master of form".
A "50th Birthday Exhibition" was held at the Boundary Gallery in London in 1996, and a retrospective of his works toured galleries in Wales in 2006, including the Welsh Museum of Modern Art at Machynlleth
. The Painter's Quarry, a collection of critical essays on his work, was also published in 2006; a television profile with the same title appeared on BBC2.
After suffering from poor health in 2006, he died suddenly from a heart attack
while walking with his wife near his home in Deiniolen
, near Caernarfon
in Gwynedd
. His wife, and their two sons and two daughters, carry on his exhibitions and legacy today.
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
painter. After the death of Sir Kyffin Williams in September 2006, he was recognised as the leading landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
painter in Wales.
Early years
Prendergast was born in Abertridwr, a mining village in the Aber valley near CaerphillyCaerphilly
Caerphilly is a town in the county borough of Caerphilly, south Wales, located at the southern end of the Rhymney Valley, with a population of approximately 31,000. It is a commuter town of Cardiff and Newport, which are located some 7.5 miles and 12 miles away, respectively...
in Glamorgan
Glamorgan
Glamorgan or Glamorganshire is one of the thirteen historic counties and a former administrative county of Wales. It was originally an early medieval kingdom of varying boundaries known as Glywysing until taken over by the Normans as a lordship. Glamorgan is latterly represented by the three...
. His father was a Roman Catholic from Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
who sought work as a coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
miner
Miner
A miner is a person whose work or business is to extract ore or minerals from the earth. Mining is one of the most dangerous trades in the world. In some countries miners lack social guarantees and in case of injury may be left to cope without assistance....
in Maesteg
Maesteg
Maesteg is a town and community in Bridgend County Borough, Wales. Maesteg lies at the northernmost end of the Llynfi Valley, close to the border with Neath Port Talbot. In 2001, Maesteg had a population of 17,859, but it is now at an estimate of 20,000....
in south Wales after the 1916 Easter Rising. His two older brothers attended the local grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
, but he was sent to the local secondary modern, where his art teacher, Gomer Lewis, recognised his artistic talent. With support from the County art adviser, Leslie Moore, he won a County art scholarship to study at the Cardiff School of Art in 1962, despite having no formal academic qualifications.
He moved to the Slade School of Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art
The Slade School of Fine Art is a world-renownedart school in London, United Kingdom, and a department of University College London...
in 1964, where he studied under Sir William Coldstream, Robyn Denny, Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon (painter)
Francis Bacon , was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. Bacon's painterly but abstract figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds...
, Jeff Camp, and Euan Uglow
Euan Uglow
-Biography:Euan Uglow was born 10 March 1932 in London and as a child lived in Tulse Hill in south London. His father was an accountant, and Uglow went to the local grammar school in Tulse Hill, called Strand School. Afterwards he studied at Camberwell School of Art from 1948 to 1950...
. His tutor was Frank Auerbach
Frank Auerbach
Frank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...
. He won the Nettleship Prize for Figure Painting in 1967. He met his future wife, Lesley Riding, in his last year at the Slade, and they were married in 1967.
Career
He taught part-time in a school for one year after leaving the Slade, and then studied for a M.A.Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
at Reading University with Terry Frost
Terry Frost
Sir Terry Frost RA was an English artist noted for his abstracts....
and Claude Rogers with a view to becoming a teacher. There, he met fellow student and landscape painter Len Tabner who remained a close friend in later life.
He and his wife moved to Bethesda
Bethesda, Wales
Bethesda is a town lying on the River Ogwen and the A5 road on the edge of Snowdonia, in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, colloquially called Pesda by the locals.- History :...
in 1969, a village near Bangor
Bangor, Gwynedd
Bangor is a city in Gwynedd, north west Wales, and one of the smallest cities in Britain. It is a university city with a population of 13,725 at the 2001 census, not including around 10,000 students at Bangor University. Including nearby Menai Bridge on Anglesey, which does not however form part of...
and close to the Penrhyn Quarry
Penrhyn Quarry
The Penrhyn Slate Quarry is a slate quarry located near Bethesda in north Wales. At the end of the nineteenth century it was the world's largest slate quarry; the main pit is nearly long and deep, and it was worked by nearly 3,000 quarrymen. It has since been superseded in size by slate quarries...
. He taught part-time at Liverpool School of Art until 1974, then at a local school, and then at Coleg Menai
Coleg Menai
Coleg Menai is a further education college located in Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales. The college also has campuses in Llangefni and Caernarfon...
, but he concentrated more on developing as an artist. He specialised in paintings of the Penrhyn slate quarry, which he described as "the biggest man-made hole in Europe, like Bruegel's Tower of Babel
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...
, but in reverse", and of Snowdonia
Snowdonia
Snowdonia is a region in north Wales and a national park of in area. It was the first to be designated of the three National Parks in Wales, in 1951.-Name and extent:...
. His early works have a bruque Expressionist style, almost Cubist. He painted similar views of the towers in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
on a visit to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 1993.
He won prizes at the National Eisteddfod in 1975 and 1977. Examples of his paintings are owned by the Contemporary Art Society of Wales, and the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
. For some years his work was shown by Agnew's gallery in London, culminating in a touring exhibition; the foreword to the exhibition catalogue was written by Sister Wendy Beckett
Wendy Beckett
Sister Wendy Beckett is a South African-born British art expert, consecrated virgin and contemplative hermit who became a celebrity during the 1990s, presenting a series of acclaimed art history documentaries for the BBC.-Biography:...
, who described him as "a superb colourist and a master of form".
A "50th Birthday Exhibition" was held at the Boundary Gallery in London in 1996, and a retrospective of his works toured galleries in Wales in 2006, including the Welsh Museum of Modern Art at Machynlleth
Machynlleth
Machynlleth is a market town in Powys, Wales. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads.Machynlleth was the seat of Owain Glyndŵr's Welsh Parliament in 1404, and as such claims to be the "ancient capital of Wales". However, it has never held any official...
. The Painter's Quarry, a collection of critical essays on his work, was also published in 2006; a television profile with the same title appeared on BBC2.
After suffering from poor health in 2006, he died suddenly from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
while walking with his wife near his home in Deiniolen
Deiniolen
Deiniolen is a village in Gwynedd, Wales, at the foot of Elidir Fawr. Deiniolen has views over Caernarfon covering the, and, on a clear day, Holyhead Mountain and occasionally the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland, can be seen...
, near Caernarfon
Caernarfon
Caernarfon is a Royal town, community and port in Gwynedd, Wales, with a population of 9,611. It lies along the A487 road, on the east banks of the Menai Straits, opposite the Isle of Anglesey. The city of Bangor is to the northeast, while Snowdonia fringes Caernarfon to the east and southeast...
in Gwynedd
Gwynedd
Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...
. His wife, and their two sons and two daughters, carry on his exhibitions and legacy today.
External links
- Martin Tinney Gallery (recent paintings)
- Art Cymru
- Royal West of England Academy
- A gallery of his work from Art Cymru
- Works exhibited at the Boundary Gallery
- Tributes paid to 'unique' artist, BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
, 15 January 2007