Artwork of the Week - 7th October 2014

Peter Brook - The Woods are Lovely at Christmas

Peter Brook was born in 1927 in the Pennine village of Scholes, Yorkshire. His parents were farmers so he was brought up helping out in the countryside that surrounded him. After studying at Barnsley Grammar School Peter moved to London to study teacher training at Goldsmiths College. He attended evening classes in life drawing and visited numerous art exhibitions whilst there. After two years in the RAF Peter Brook returned to Yorkshire where he became a teacher and married Molly.

Back in his home surroundings of Yorkshire Peter Brook flourished as an artist. He experimented with different paints and began to mix very fine sandstone from a local quarry into the paint. This gave the buildings more substance and power and was a contrast to the smooth sky lines. The local landscape always created inspiration for his paintings and in 1960 Peter Brook had his first one man exhibition which was a huge success.

Peter continued to have many more successful exhibitions nationally as well as internationally throughout his career. He also changed his painting styles over the years, he discovered a set of old Victorian photographs of Yorkshire and was inspired. He loved the print like quality and his thick painting style was soon replaced by much thinner paint with smooth finishes.

In the 1980's Peter started to feature himself with his dog in his paintings and this soon became a trademark for his later work. The Woods are Lovely at Christmas is a bestseller at Union Art and you can see here Peter with his loyal dog walking over the land and through the woods. Peter's paintings show the beauty and vastness of the Yorkshire landscape, he captures the history and humour of the scene.

Sadly Peter Brook died in 2009 but his work continues to be highly collectable with his originals fetching high prices and his prints selling out quickly. To view the full collection of Open and Limited Edition Prints please take a look through the range available at Union Art.