Peter Prendergast; Welsh painter who painted 'the largest man-made hole in Europe'
Hyfler/Rosner
Wales's finest landscape painter - who made an epic subject
of 'the largest man-made hole in Europe'
The Independent
17 January 2007
Tony Curtis
BEAUTIFUL work:
http://www.welshartsarchive.org.uk/galleries/peter_prendergast.htm
Following the death of Sir Kyffin Williams in October, Peter
Prendergast was acknowledged to be the finest landscape
painter in Wales - and Williams's heir in representing the
rugged beauty of Snowdonia for his people and the wider
world.
Prendergast was born in 1946 in Abertridwr in the Aber
valley, in what is now Mid-Glamorgan. His father was a miner
of Irish Catholic stock. While his brother passed the
11-plus and went on to the grammar school, Peter was
consigned to the local secondary modern, where he excelled
mainly at games; he seemed destined to follow his father
into the mines.
However, he was fortunate to be taught by a remarkable art
master; Gomer Lewis, who had survived years as a POW in Java
at the hands of the Japanese, recognised Peter Prendergast's
talent and brought him to the attention of the County Art
Adviser, an accomplished painter, Leslie Moore. With Moore's
support, though with no academic qualifications, Prendergast
entered the foundation course at Cardiff School of Art in
1962 and two years later progressed from there to the Slade.
At that time Sir William Coldstream was the Professor and
the staff included Robyn Denny, Francis Bacon, Jeff Camp,
Euan Uglow and Frank Auerbach, who was Prendergast's tutor.
Somewhat overwhelmed by the challenges of living in London -
on first arriving he had spent almost half his grant on a
taxi ride from Paddington to Woodside Park - nevertheless,
he more than survived the Slade, winning the Nettleship
Prize for Figure Painting in 1967.
Later he was aware that his Expressionist painting would be
attributed, inevitably, to the influence of Auerbach; but he
was insistent that his bold colours, often held within
structures by thick black lines, had been present in his
work from his schooldays working with Gomer Lewis.
In his last year at the Slade, Peter Prendergast met and
married Lesley Riding. He taught in a school part-time for
the 1967-68 academic year, then went to Reading University
to do the MA course with Terry Frost and Claude Rogers: he
needed a degree to realise his ambition to combine a more
permanent teaching post with his vocation as an artist.
At that time the university was not particularly supportive
of painting the figure or landscape and it was his fellow
student and landscape painter Len Tabner who was closer in
spirit and practice to the Welsh painter. They remained
close friends for the rest of Prendergast's life. After
graduation Tabner settled in Yorkshire and encouraged
Prendergast likewise to move into the country, where there
was landscape and affordable living.
In 1969 Peter and Lesley Prendergast moved to Bethesda,
eventually to live in a house close to where the German
immigrant Martin Bloch had painted the quarry workers on his
visits to Wales in 1947-54. Penrhyn Quarry was the main
employment for workers in the Bethesda area; it dominated
local politics, social life and the physical environment.
But, after four years of part-time teaching at Liverpool
School of Art, Prendergast's contract was ended:
They decided that drawing was out of date, not needed in
schools any more . . . So at 27 I was out of work, with two
children. Out of date, out of touch.
From that low point Prendergast would work determinedly to
become a significant painter. He taught for a period at the
local school and then at Coleg Menai, but over the next
decade the quarry would provide him with an epic subject. He
won prizes at the National Eisteddfod in 1975 and 1977, a
period during which the Gold Medal for Art was not
presented.
In 1977 the art historian Lewis Allen bought a painting for
the Contemporary Art Society of Wales, the first of several
that society would acquire and distribute to galleries in
Wales. The Allens also bought the largest of the study
drawings of Penrhyn Quarry for their own collection. The oil
in which that series culminated was acquired by the Tate
Gallery in 1984. It is a vision of what Prendergast thought
to be "the largest man-made hole in Europe" as an almost
Cubist rendition of greens, ochres, blues and black.
Over the next 10 years Prendergast exhibited in Bath at the
Artside Gallery and at the Andrew Knight Gallery in Cardiff,
as well as with the touring exhibitions "The Road to
Bethesda" and "From the Land and the Sea", and in group
shows at the Tate, the Laing in Newcastle and Norwich School
of Art. His work was seen abroad - in Perth, Australia, and
in the United States with the "Artists in National Parks"
exhibition.
His first prestigious contract was with Agnew's in London,
who were also showing his friend Len Tabner; his
relationship with that gallery lasted for a number of years,
culminating in an exhibition which toured from London
through Wales in 1993 and 1994. Work was included from his
earlier career, but the more recent paintings on canvas and
paper of the Nant Ffrancon valleys were outstanding. The
foreword to that tour's impressive catalogue was written by
Sister Wendy Beckett who described Prendergast as "a superb
colourist and a master of form"; in front of his paintings,
she thought, "it is very tempting to just to ask viewers to
stand in silence . . . and let the music 'sing to the
spirit' ".
Agnew's made available their apartment in New York and
Prendergast overcame his fear of flying to stay there for a
short period in 1993. His paintings of that city explore the
depths of Manhattan's man-made chasms with an awe
reminiscent of his wonder at the scale of Penrhyn Quarry.
When he left Agnew's he showed regularly with the Boundary
Gallery in London and with Martin Tinney in Cardiff. Both
galleries showed work from his major retrospective of 2006
which had been initiated by Oriel Ynys Mon, the public
gallery on Anglesey and which had toured to Machynlleth,
Runcorn, Cardiff and Swansea.
The year 2006 had been highly successful for the painter.
His touring exhibition was critically well received, many
works were sold and a collection of essays by critics such
as David Alston and John Russell Taylor, The Painter's
Quarry, was published by Seren Books. A 30-minute filmed
profile was shown on BBC2 Wales. Towards the end of the year
he had contracted to return to a West End gallery: Messum's
were planning an exhibition in 2007 in Cork Street.
However, 2006 also saw Peter Prendergast's health
deteriorating; he was suffering from debilitating blood
disorders. His new series of works took him to the coastline
of Anglesey, capturing the energy of the Irish Sea in works
such as The Sea at Twr Ellin, Wild Sea and Below the Sea;
but, on Sunday, walking with his wife near his home in
Deiniolen, Gwynedd, he died suddenly, of a heart attack.
A year ago, he visited for the last time the very frail Sir
Kyffin Williams on Anglesey. They talked warmly and with
continuing respect each for the other's work. As Prendergast
drove off he saw in the rear-view mirror Williams raise both
his arms in salutation. It could have been a benediction.
Tony Curtis
Peter Prendergast, painter: born Abertridwr, Glamorgan 27
October 1946; married 1967 Lesley Riding (two sons, two
daughters); died Deiniolen, Gwynedd 14 January 2007.