The Old School is delighted and thrilled to showcase the work of celebrated painter, printmaker, author and composer, Piers Browne, who lives and works just “over the top” from our gallery, in a farmhouse commanding the most beautiful views of his beloved Wensleydale. Piers’s work will feature in our main gallery and in our Yorkshire’s Coast & Sea Exhibition in April & May, and signed copies of his epic book, THE GLORIOUS TREES OF GREAT BRITAIN, containing 167 etchings made over a period of 20 years, will be available to purchase.
Unlike many art prints, all of Pier’s etchings are genuine prints, run through the press in his workshop. Each one is lovingly created by hand, inked by hand, printed by hand and signed to say genuine. Made by hand, no two prints are exactly the same; each is therefore an individual, original, work of art.
Currently on display in the Gallery
Title: May Plum Blossom: Towards upper Wensleydale with Swallows
Medium: Etching
Size: H63xW71cm Framed
Price: £695
Title: Winter Sun: Hardraw Force, Wensleydale
Medium: Etching
Size: H97xW76cm Framed
Price: £695
Title: Wensleydale in Springtime, the Kiss
Medium: Etching
Size: H47xW40cm Framed
Price: £265
Title: Ash Grove
Medium: Etching
Size: H35xW33cm Framed
Price: £195
We have more framed etchings in stock and prints in our browsers. Please ask.
In Piers’s own words …
PIERS BROWNE has had 100 exactly One-man’s worldwide, from Malibu to Munster in Westphalia, and knows nothing really works in a picture unless the love, the initial inspiration, is passionate right until the last brushmark or final line drawn on the etching plate(s).
He has made Wensleydale his adored valley and over 40 years has ventured ‘over the top’, indeed when first painting here in1972, it was the Farmer’s Arms he loved to visit of a summer evening.
He was made Painter of North England in the prestigious ING Discerning Eye show in London, 2011, and ‘PAINTER OF THE NORTH’ in the 2012 Great North Art Show, and regularly shows at the RA Summer Exhibition. But turned more to book writing and illustrating when from 1980 to 2000 he made 167 etchings for a book he co-wrote called THE GLORIOUS TREES OF GREAT BRITAIN – a book of only 400 of 4000 copies left which these gallery owners like so much Piers is making this gallery his main TREES book outlet!
His aim is bring fresh air and exciting compositions into anyone’s sitting room on any dank, dark, dank British day with his novella (33,000 words 29 images): “LA ROUTE DES VIOLETTES’ set in south-east Provence which is also here. This is being reprinted for a huge edition as some french people say it will sell in thousands over there! certainly it’s been translated into french. The edition here was a first effort and self published in 500 copies – now 250 as PB not happy with the printing or quality of picture which, on suoper papoer, became darker.
Piers will always etch and paint: there is so much beauty about – as at Saltburn or Sandsend…and has released a rare oil of radshanks for this gallery’s opening.
Prizes/Awards
1974 & 1975 David Murray Landscape Prize, London
1975 Certificate of Painting after 3 years’s at the Royal Academy Schools
1986 Rank Xerox Printmaking Prize 1986 London
1987 John Player Portrait Award 2nd Prize National Portrait Gallery
1987 Norsk Hydro Painting Award, Darlington
Late 1990’s: supplied 100 etchings for P&O”Aurora’s State Rooms
1991 WHSmith Illustrated Book of the Year/joint First prize with Wordsworth book
2009 Artichoke Printmaking Award, London
2011 Made ‘Painter of the North’ in the London DISCERNING EYE show
2012 Winner of The Great North Art Show, Ripon Cathedral
2012-17 Five One-mans and 2017, as ever a picture in the NEAC, central London, then writing and illustrating his first novella set in Provence “A ROUTE DES VIOLETTES” .
Melvyn Bragg: “I am full of admiration for Piers’ lovely work.”
HRH Prince Charles, who wrote the foreword to the Trees book: “Trees also have a unique capacity to lift our spirits, and it is entirely this intangible dimension that Piers Browne evokes so splendidly.”
Giles Auty (Art Critic in UK 1965 – 80): “Piers is a true Romantic dedicated simply to his Art.”
Justine Brooks: “What energy the man has – a good painter-etcher”
Diana Armfield RA & her husband Bernard Dunstan RA: “We both admire the wonderful intensity of Piers’ vision, and, in some of his Oils, the handling with its rythmn of paint marks
makes for a strange beauty all of their own. His etchings are superb”.
Books
A Shropshire Lad 1988 25 handmade books Kingsley Amis foreword publ Ashford Buchan & Enright.SOLD OUT.
An Elegy in Arcady 1990 20 boxed sets SOLD OUT.
William Wordsworth: A Lakeland Anthology 1991John Mortimer foreword. Publ John Murray.SOLD OUT.
Wensleydale: Etchings & Verse 1994 David Astor foreword. Publ Ashford Press SOLD OUT.
Glorious Trees of Gt Britain 2002 HRH Pr Charles foreword. Publ John Murray. 400 remaining of 4000
Sonnets for a Siren 2008 20 handmade books + real silver jackets. 27 sonnets by PB. To be published
Love in the Aegean 2011 Soft back, fully illustrated from paintings by PB with 24 of his shorter poems.
La Route des Violettes Hard back ed 500, illustrated from 29 etchings by PB – a novella of 100 pages
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