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Above: Echoes of Colonial Cuba’ 2005 57.5 x 47cm
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Above: Seeing La Rioja Alta in a Strange Light 2005 57.5 x 47cm
Above: ‘Hanging Out in Miramar’ 2004 47 x 57.5cm
Above: ‘Living in Awe’ 2005 76 x 61cm
Above: ‘Garganta’ 2005 57.5 x 47cm
‘Sweeping Vineyards’ 2004 57.5 x 47cm
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THE MILLINERY WORKS
May 3 - 22 2005
Christopher Firmstone: A Layered Vision
I’ve known Christopher Firmstone for almost half-a-century. Then we were both young things making our way in our two respective professions, in my case museums, in Christopher’s architecture and design. I vividly recall our first encounter. It was occasioned by an exhibition he designed for Birmingham City Art Gallery in the mid-sixties on the Lunar Society. For that period it was hugely innovative, imaginative and elegant. In the wake of becoming director of two national collections in succession I had chance to commission him to design both exhibitions and permanent installations. All of them had excitement and commitment and, even more, he worked to budget and delivered on time. Those were halcyon days in both our careers, but then something happened.
Both of us to a degree had less run out of steam than suffered from a feeling of ‘been there, done that’. I know everything about the problems of changing direction at that stage of life. It is not easy. In my case I lowered the curtain on thirty years of museums and took up one as a writer, historian and gardener. In Christopher's case all the frustrations of the architectural profession were shed in favour of the painter’s brush, enabling an exploration of his inner eye through a perception of the world around him which he would otherwise have failed to fulfil. He shares with me a keen sense of being as it were reborn through such a decision, a rebirth vividly reflected in the explosive joy of his work.
Roy Strong
Christopher Firmstone: A Layered Vision
Christopher Firmstone, whose compelling portrayals of skylines, places, and people have won him a growing reputation, is an artist whose vision has an appeal that is the essence of all good art; an individuality and sincerity that is his own visual language.
His latest body of work, which leaves the viewer with a sense of familiarity and yet peculiarity, is gathered together in this exhibition. This work has been developed as a result of a number of recent visits to Spain, Cuba & New York.
Born in 1937 and originally trained as an architect, painting has gradually become Christopher’s principal professional activity.
During the past fifteen years his paintings and drawings have been included in exhibitions at the Royal Institute of British Architects, London; The Singer & Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London; the Mid-Art Exhibition at Himley Hall, West Midlands, and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Birmingham, where he was awarded the Caran D’Ache prize in 1998. He contributes regularly to the Millinery Works Gallery annual exhibition of Contemporary British Art.
His first one-man show was held at Dudley Museum & Art Gallery in 2002 and he has featured in numerous mixed exhibitions. The Millinery Works Gallery is delighted that this, his first solo show in London, is being held here in 2005.
Jeff Jackson
For The Millinery Works Gallery
For further information please contact us
on +44 (0)207 359 2019
View Full catalogue
email
paul@millineryworks.co.uk
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