A monumental painting by Britain’s leading mountain artist is to be auctioned in the Lake District.
Scafell Crag, by Julian Cooper, is 13ft high and 10ft wide, with a story almost as remarkable as the painting itself.
It was commissioned to celebrate mountaineering and the role of the Lake District in the birth of rock climbing.
It was hung in the entrance atrium of Rheged Discovery Centre near Penrith since the centre’s opening in 2001, and 20 years later was moved to Grasmere.
Since then it has been on display filling an entire wall in Mathilde’s cafe alongside the Heaton Cooper Studio and Gallery, run by Julian’s family.
His grandfather Alfred Heaton Cooper, and father William Heaton Cooper, were both eminent mountain painters, and the studio is the legacy of their work and much more besides, celebrating the art of the Lakes. The studio and cafe are run by Julian’s niece, Becky Heaton Cooper, also an artist.
It’s now been moved to Mitchell’s saleroom in Cockermouth to be auctioned as part of its Antiques & Fine Art Sale, which starts on Wednesday, with an opening price of £6,000, though the estimate is that it will reach between £10,000 and £15,000.
It is being sold by the Mountain Heritage Trust, who commissioned the painting, to realise assets.
Julian had done an earlier, smaller painting of climbers on Central Buttress, Scafell, which he showed to the Mountain Heritage Trust to give them an idea of his plan.
At that stage, the intention was to display a horizontal painting along a wall in the restaurant at the centre, and Julian got to work on what was one of his biggest-ever commissions.
He needed specially-built indoor scaffolding in his studio to work on it.
But then the site for the painting was changed, moving to a new space that was higher than wider, so the painting had to be rescaled. “Pikes Crag had to be moved in front of Scafell, deleting the landscape in between,” says Julian.
Then the opening date of Rheged was brought forward, because the then Prime Minister Tony Blair would be available to carry it out, so Julian’s painting had to be hung unfinished.
Hanging the painting took four men, ropes, two long ladders, and a specially made framework to support it while it was secured to the wall.
After the ceremony was over, the painting was removed to a barn where Julian added climbers on the crag, friends and family whom he persuaded to model for him, including Becky, who can be seen in the bottom left of the painting. The finished work was then taken back to Rheged six months later.
A spokesman for the Mountain Heritage Trust said: “The Mountain Heritage Trust is excited by the forthcoming sale of Julian Cooper’s wonderful Scafell Crag, which many may remember from hanging at Rheged during the time of the National Mountaineering Exhibition.
“With the painting finding a new owner, the MHT will be able to further their important aims of preserving, conserving and cataloguing their outstanding collections of archives and objects related to British mountaineering and climbing that are held at its HQ in Threlkeld.”
Julian said he hoped a buyer can be found: “I know it’s a very big painting, but it would be a tragedy if it disappeared from view because no one has a wall big enough.”
