An exhibition of paintings and drawings of the Lake District will open in Grasmere in March.
The Heaton Cooper Studio archive gallery will feature the work of Rebecca Wallace and Pip Seymour in the show Langdale Glisk.
The artists first came north, to Horton in Ribblesdale in the Yorkshire Dales, to find factory space for their business making high quality acrylic, oil and watercolours.
They had set up their own company, Wallace Seymour Fine Art Products, in 2010, to resolve the issue of poor quality art materials commonly used by contemporary artists, especially in art schools. They worked first in a shared studio in London, but moved north to find affordable space to develop their business. Pip was born in Bradford; Rebecca is a Londoner by birth.
Their colours are now sold worldwide, and in leading independent stores across the UK.
But it’s in the Cumbrian valley of Langdale, that their own art work has been evolving. They’ve been working in the wild upland areas in all weather, stepping in the footsteps of the Romantic poets, and referencing the work of painters from the past who have embraced this extraordinary landscape.
These include local artists such as William Green, through noted visitors such as Edward Lear, Frances Town, Turner, Constable, Gainsborough and the small expressive landscapes of Kurt Schwitters.
Recently they have been working in the country of the Duddon Sonnets of William Wordsworth, with a group of artists, writers and dancers to make a journey from the source to the sea – the completed works shown at the Coles Gallery, Leeds Corn Exchange in 2023.
A key part of their paint production and painting practice is to create colour from natural materials, from powdered Honister slate, through red ochre from the Leighton Hall paint mines to Kendal Green, a plant-based colour redolent of the cloth woven and dyed at the Auld Grey Town.
Pip studied at Winchester School of Art and Brighton Polytechnic. Rebecca Wallace studied at North Oxfordshire College, Prince’s Drawing School and Westminster College. Pip had a long teaching career alongside his own creative work, teaching paint technique at many art schools, including the Prince’s Drawing School, Camberwell School of Art, and Birmingham School of Art.
Pip and Rebecca have a long standing connection to Manchester School of Art and University of Salford, where their colours are available to the painting department, and each year a student award is made to final year students.
Langdale Glisk, they say, is a celebration of place through the energies and emanations of nature.
The show is curated by Julian Cooper who said: “Rebecca and Pip cut the process of looking and drawing right down to the bone, immersed in the landscape in front of the subject, in all weathers. The results are fresh and authentic.”
The exhibition opens on Thursday March 20 until Monday May 5.
