The New Dyehouse Gallery presents

Reflections on Colour

An exhibition of recent paintings
by Rosemary Higbee

at the New Dyehouse Gallery
Friday 17 February 7pm - 9pm

Special Guest: Roisin Ingle, Irish Times Journalist

Exhibition continues until 18th March

Exhibition sponsored by
Brassiere Orange and The Wine Buff
(Restaurant reservations. Tel 051 875880)
(The Wine Buff. Tel 051 878748)

• Born Belgaum, India 1923
• Reading University 1940-42
• Kingston-on-Thames School of Art 1945-48
• London University 1948-49
• Chelsea School of Art engraving and etching
• National Diploma in Design 1949
• Teaching in London 1949-1973
• Art Teacher in Waterford Central Technical Institute 1973-1989
• Exhibition in Garter Lane, Waterford 1990
• Exhibition in Clonmel 1991
• Dyehouse Gallery 1997
• Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin 2000

"I think it is universally acknowledged among painters that it is exceedingly difficult to write any real perception about painting; It is almost impossible to write about one’s own painting. I can plan a canvas with great care but it is usually the case that the more successful paintings have somehow taken hold of their own accord and practically painted themselves."

"Different artists have influenced me at various stage so of my life. When I was a student it was Paul Klee. Later, Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard, and Victor Passmore. I have always been interested in Persian and Mogul painting. I did spend my early childhood in India, which probably has also affected me. The landscapes of Devon and Cornwall and of Ireland have played their part. At the present time I feel myself to be pulled in two opposing directions, which I suppose are the classical and romantic. I especially love and revere Turner and Braque and I am interested in the work of the contemporary painter, Howard Hodgkin."

Rosemary Higbee

Influences

“I was born in India and lived there until I was about 7½. I have quite vivid memories of that time and I remember, after a long sea voyage, the shock of cold grey wintry England after the intensity of light and colour of India. I think that I have certainly been influenced by those memories and have since then learnt to love the beautiful Mogul and Persian miniatures with their glowing colours and patterns.

I cannot a remember a time when I did not enjoy drawing and painting but my first encounter with so-called “Modern Art” was when I was about 12 years old. I lived with grandparents in an old country house on the edge of Dartmoor. Their taste was quite Victorian and any pictures in the house were family watercolours and rather dingy old family portraits, (although I do remember some Carot reproductions).

At Christmas in those days a magazine was produced (a by-product perhaps of the “Tatler”) called “Holly Leaves.” In it I saw a rather nice colour reproduction of a 17th Century still life, which contained the usual birds’ eggs, butterflies, grapes with the bloom on them, and flowers bedecked with dewdrops. I begged to be allowed to cut it out and pin it up in my bedroom. I took it upstairs and as I was about to pin it on the wall, I looked at the reverse side of the page. There I saw a Picasso Blue Period “Mother and Child” and I was absolutely transfixed. Of course, this was, by Modern Standards, a very realistic and traditional image, but to me it was an absolute revelation. That was the start of my love affair with “Modern Art.” This was reinforced by the presence of a reproduction of a Van Gough landscape of Arles, given to me by the mother of a friend.

After a battle with my family, I went to Art School at the age of about 17½. I spent about a year and a half there, which I loved, and then, like everyone else in Britain at that time, took on some war work.

In 1945 I went back to Art School and immersed myself in painting and drawing. As far as I can remember the dates, in 1946 the influence of the French School of Painting began to filter into the very conventional and academic English Art Establishment and by 1952 (I think) wonderful exhibitions of Picasso, Matisse and Braque had been shown at the Tate, followed later by a stunning Bonnard Exhibition. These were of course artists that I and my contemporaries admired and were influenced by. There were of course others - de Staal, victor Passmore and Ben Nicholson. They came as an amazing and wonderful revelation and opened up a whole new world to us.

In about 1948, I remember going to France ad seeing Picasso murals in the The Grimaldi Museum in Antibes and Matisse’s Dominican Chapel in Vence, France

These have been the great artists that I have loved and that I suppose must have influenced me in my work. The world of abstract expressionism and Popular Art had very little effect on me because all that came much later.
(I am after all 82!)”

Rosemary Higbee January 2006

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