View allAll Photos Tagged Ravilious,
Market Drayton Livestock Auction, Shropshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Another engaging trip to Market Drayton, albeit on a very cold day. I took a large number of prints from the other visits up with me and gave them to Bob Oakes and the staff as a thank you for their help. It was nice to see him take them around and show them to people who were featured and I will need to ask him to put some names to those faces in a future visit.
I was planning to leave the cattle out for the most part, and so I concentrated on the people and again with a mixture of formalised portraits and reportage. There is something very beautiful about the background interiors at this site, particularly in black and white, the tonal values seem to all compliment the people and their own clothing too. I did however visit the back of the building and photograph some of the animals as it was so cold that I wanted to get that across. I also photographed at the very back where I hadn't previously realised that there was an area for washing out trailers and cleaning everything off, presumably for disease control rather than pure aesthetics.
Each trip to Market Drayton Auctions leaves me inspired to keep going and gives me the belief that there are always more ways to show, to present and to make photographs, while all the time giving me such a rich subject matter in a welcoming environment.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Dairy Cottage Farm, Apedale, Staffordshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Dairy Cottage, despite the name, is a large beef farm which also produces feed (silage and haylage) for their own cattle and for sale to other local farms. With a mixture of modern and very old building as well as some antique farm machinery, this was a wonderful place to spend a day and the family really made me feel welcome and were happy to take part in The Rural Eye project.
The weather was very poor on this day and all the cattle were of course in for the winter, but I will be returning in the next season to photograph again and catch the farm under different conditions.
Many thanks to Tracey, Royston and Tom Pepper.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
South Downs Landscape along the Bostal Road above Steyning in West Sussex.
When ever I am drawn to capturing a landscape I consider what draws me to it. I am wary of just "shooting what I see", even when i adhere to the rule of thirds, i feel I lose something by that approach. My discovery of the work of Fay Godwin, James Ravilious and John Davies have opened up the possibilities in what I see in a landscape.
Here I responded to the tonality and underlying structure of the scene with the implied out of level linear forms of the horizon, the road line and the shadows of the trees defining the slope of the hillside.
©2010 Art Hutchins - Art's Eye Photographic©
To purchase prints up to 30" in length of this image visit:
www.photoboxgallery.com/gallery/photo?photo_id=684338935&...
See my new A3 Photobook here:
www.photoboxgallery.com/ArtsEye/collection?album_id=34505...
The English Winter Fair 2012, Staffordshire County Showground, Stafford, Staffordshire. 18th November 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Simon Wragg, press officer for The English Winter Fair, supplied me with a press pass for this event and I am very grateful to him for that.
This was a huge event including the tasting of cooked food, a carcass hang, all manner of cattle and a huge show ring where animals were presented at their best for prizes. I had never been to such an event before and it was great to see many familiar faces there, people I have met at Leek and Market Drayton livestock auctions on previous shoots. While I was aware of the 'showing' of cattle, in a similar vein to a dog show really, I was still surprised to see young people brushing and even blow-drying their prize cattle, spraying them with glitter and taking a real pride in their animals.
This was a coming together of hundreds of local producers, as well as some farmers from around the country, even from Scotland. There was a festival atmosphere and again the social aspect was very evident. I am now going to pursue more such events for the archive, including ones in Shropshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and possibly even further afield if the opportunity presents.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Park Hill Farm, Hales, Shropshire. November 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Pat Pimlott was kind enough to allow me to visit and photograph on their farm near Loggerheads. Park Hill produce 'happy meat', beef and pork which they take to sell at markets in and around Staffordshire under their own brand. With award winning sausages and an approach that prioritises animal welfare, they produce great tasting meat with a concentration on the ecology and welfare of their historic farm. Pat also welcomes many schools by arrangement, giving young people an insight into farming life and the reality of where meat comes from.
I spent a few hours wandering their land, investigating the hundred year old barn, the jittery young cattle, the curious pigs and the landscape itself. I was particularly interested in the old which has been used since around 1900 and today houses the adult cattle through the worst of our winter weather. It was a milking shed when Pat's father ran it after the war, and I was fascinated with the details left behind from that era. I do plan to return to Park Hill Farm in the early Spring, hopefully to catch them working in the fields with the animals and also to get some more detail shots in the old barn, but with a tripod this time so that I can do it justice. A wonderful day, and my thanks go to Pat for allowing me to be there and spending so much time talking me through their current practices and past histories.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
My Great Outdoors Competition Entries
I just couldn’t resist doing this, yes there really are a lot of other things that really do need my full and undivided attention RIGHT NOW, but I just couldn’t resist doing it...for my idea, this idea you realise, not for this competition per se.
Then although at the beginning they looked mildly Ravilious-ish in tone, in the end they wound up as being closer to Alois Carigiet; ach it would appear that after so many years of living down here even my eyes have finally become wholly European in their habits (:
My Great Outdoors Competition Entries
I just couldn’t resist doing this, yes there really are a lot of other things that really do need my full and undivided attention RIGHT NOW, but I just couldn’t resist doing it...for my idea, this idea you realise, not for this competition per se.
Then although at the beginning they looked mildly Ravilious-ish in tone, in the end they wound up as being closer to Alois Carigiet; ach it would appear that after so many years of living down here even my eyes have finally become wholly European in their habits (:
A53, Nr Buxton, Derbyshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
A snowy wander around The Roaches in the Peak District, trying to find sheep farms and show the harshness of farming life in winter. The weather prevented me from getting very deep into the hills, but the landscape was beautiful and the sheep I found were certainly interested in me, presumably hoping I had some treats.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Leek Livestock Auction, Leek, Staffordshire. October 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
My second shoot for The Rural Eye archive project, and the staff and customers at Leek were really getting used to my presence and the idea that I am 'on their side' so to speak.
I had a cuppa and a long chat with Bruce Daniel, one of the senior auctioneers about the work. Bruce told me about how Leek is the last livestock market in all of Staffordshire, as my research had suggested. In fact there used by many, one every 12 miles at least, ensuring that no farmer had to walk his cattle more than 6 miles to market. There was a livestock auction in my own town of Newcastle-under-Lyme until 1994, but in the last few decades they have closed with farmers now having to drive their cattle to Leek or other auctions over the county borders.
Today I found myself really engaged with the animals, especially the sheep who are fascinated by the camera pointing at them. I do find something rather surreal about the sheep, of course their situation of being sold for food or breeding is something they are unaware of, but they always carry a worried look that as a human I can't help but translate anthropomorphically. As an ardent meat eater, I feel that I am gaining an understanding of the industry that feeds me, and I am not seeing anything negative at all, just people doing their best to raise their herds and flocks, to try and make a living in a hard and tough industry and economic climate.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
The English Winter Fair 2012, Staffordshire County Showground, Stafford, Staffordshire. 18th November 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Simon Wragg, press officer for The English Winter Fair, supplied me with a press pass for this event and I am very grateful to him for that.
This was a huge event including the tasting of cooked food, a carcass hang, all manner of cattle and a huge show ring where animals were presented at their best for prizes. I had never been to such an event before and it was great to see many familiar faces there, people I have met at Leek and Market Drayton livestock auctions on previous shoots. While I was aware of the 'showing' of cattle, in a similar vein to a dog show really, I was still surprised to see young people brushing and even blow-drying their prize cattle, spraying them with glitter and taking a real pride in their animals.
This was a coming together of hundreds of local producers, as well as some farmers from around the country, even from Scotland. There was a festival atmosphere and again the social aspect was very evident. I am now going to pursue more such events for the archive, including ones in Shropshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and possibly even further afield if the opportunity presents.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
From the beautifully produced: ‘The Legion Book’ published in 1929 by Cassell and printed by the Curwen Press. You can find a description of the book here: archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-october-1929/41/the-p....
And it’s contents here: www.worldcat.org/title/legion-book/oclc/1071148.
There are also many other marvellous illustrations, including one by Eric Ravilious.
The Christmas Dressed Poultry Sale at Leek Livestock Auction, Leek, Staffordshire. December 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
A third visit to Leek Livestock Auction, but this time for the Christmas Dressed Poultry auction which attracts a mixture of rural people and those city folk who are in the know.
This was a frenetic few hours with hundreds of turkeys being auctioned, as well as a quantity of geese, ducks and other poultry, even live birds. Since I was there I decided to purchase a turkey for my own Christmas dinner and my vegetarian fiance got over excited and bid on a huge turkey, but at close to £1 per pound, the price was fantastic.
Auctioneers, Bruce Daniel and Robert Watkins took turns on the podium, with Graham Watkins and Mark Elliott amongst others running the floor. People from all walks of life were there and I will certainly be back every year for my annual turkey purchase.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
ca. August 1989, Chulmleigh, Devon, England, UK --- Farmers Carrying Shocks of Wheat --- Image by © James Ravilious; Beaford Archive/CORBIS
Farmstock or Cockstock, a weekend camping and enjoying farm life (private event and location), Cheshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Boys only, surviving at camp in the depths of winter. Actually a wonderful weekend with great people, driving tractors, getting stuck, building fires, shootings guns and going to the toilet in the great outdoors. An annual farm based experience weekend for a select group of guys.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Park Hill Farm, Hales, Shropshire. November 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Pat Pimlott was kind enough to allow me to visit and photograph on their farm near Loggerheads. Park Hill produce 'happy meat', beef and pork which they take to sell at markets in and around Staffordshire under their own brand. With award winning sausages and an approach that prioritises animal welfare, they produce great tasting meat with a concentration on the ecology and welfare of their historic farm. Pat also welcomes many schools by arrangement, giving young people an insight into farming life and the reality of where meat comes from.
I spent a few hours wandering their land, investigating the hundred year old barn, the jittery young cattle, the curious pigs and the landscape itself. I was particularly interested in the old which has been used since around 1900 and today houses the adult cattle through the worst of our winter weather. It was a milking shed when Pat's father ran it after the war, and I was fascinated with the details left behind from that era. I do plan to return to Park Hill Farm in the early Spring, hopefully to catch them working in the fields with the animals and also to get some more detail shots in the old barn, but with a tripod this time so that I can do it justice. A wonderful day, and my thanks go to Pat for allowing me to be there and spending so much time talking me through their current practices and past histories.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Market Drayton Livestock Auction, Shropshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Another engaging trip to Market Drayton, albeit on a very cold day. I took a large number of prints from the other visits up with me and gave them to Bob Oakes and the staff as a thank you for their help. It was nice to see him take them around and show them to people who were featured and I will need to ask him to put some names to those faces in a future visit.
I was planning to leave the cattle out for the most part, and so I concentrated on the people and again with a mixture of formalised portraits and reportage. There is something very beautiful about the background interiors at this site, particularly in black and white, the tonal values seem to all compliment the people and their own clothing too. I did however visit the back of the building and photograph some of the animals as it was so cold that I wanted to get that across. I also photographed at the very back where I hadn't previously realised that there was an area for washing out trailers and cleaning everything off, presumably for disease control rather than pure aesthetics.
Each trip to Market Drayton Auctions leaves me inspired to keep going and gives me the belief that there are always more ways to show, to present and to make photographs, while all the time giving me such a rich subject matter in a welcoming environment.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Park Hill Farm, Hales, Shropshire. November 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Pat Pimlott was kind enough to allow me to visit and photograph on their farm near Loggerheads. Park Hill produce 'happy meat', beef and pork which they take to sell at markets in and around Staffordshire under their own brand. With award winning sausages and an approach that prioritises animal welfare, they produce great tasting meat with a concentration on the ecology and welfare of their historic farm. Pat also welcomes many schools by arrangement, giving young people an insight into farming life and the reality of where meat comes from.
I spent a few hours wandering their land, investigating the hundred year old barn, the jittery young cattle, the curious pigs and the landscape itself. I was particularly interested in the old which has been used since around 1900 and today houses the adult cattle through the worst of our winter weather. It was a milking shed when Pat's father ran it after the war, and I was fascinated with the details left behind from that era. I do plan to return to Park Hill Farm in the early Spring, hopefully to catch them working in the fields with the animals and also to get some more detail shots in the old barn, but with a tripod this time so that I can do it justice. A wonderful day, and my thanks go to Pat for allowing me to be there and spending so much time talking me through their current practices and past histories.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
The Red Lion is a magical pub on the road between Brenzet to the South and Appledore to the North. Look out for the England flag, and park up in the little car park. In the summer there's a lovely beer garden, but it's winter now, so move inside fast!
The English Winter Fair 2012, Staffordshire County Showground, Stafford, Staffordshire. 18th November 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Simon Wragg, press officer for The English Winter Fair, supplied me with a press pass for this event and I am very grateful to him for that.
This was a huge event including the tasting of cooked food, a carcass hang, all manner of cattle and a huge show ring where animals were presented at their best for prizes. I had never been to such an event before and it was great to see many familiar faces there, people I have met at Leek and Market Drayton livestock auctions on previous shoots. While I was aware of the 'showing' of cattle, in a similar vein to a dog show really, I was still surprised to see young people brushing and even blow-drying their prize cattle, spraying them with glitter and taking a real pride in their animals.
This was a coming together of hundreds of local producers, as well as some farmers from around the country, even from Scotland. There was a festival atmosphere and again the social aspect was very evident. I am now going to pursue more such events for the archive, including ones in Shropshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and possibly even further afield if the opportunity presents.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Dairy Cottage Farm, Apedale, Staffordshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Dairy Cottage, despite the name, is a large beef farm which also produces feed (silage and haylage) for their own cattle and for sale to other local farms. With a mixture of modern and very old building as well as some antique farm machinery, this was a wonderful place to spend a day and the family really made me feel welcome and were happy to take part in The Rural Eye project.
The weather was very poor on this day and all the cattle were of course in for the winter, but I will be returning in the next season to photograph again and catch the farm under different conditions.
Many thanks to Tracey, Royston and Tom Pepper.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Leek Livestock Auction, Leek, Staffordshire. October 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
My second shoot for The Rural Eye archive project, and the staff and customers at Leek were really getting used to my presence and the idea that I am 'on their side' so to speak.
I had a cuppa and a long chat with Bruce Daniel, one of the senior auctioneers about the work. Bruce told me about how Leek is the last livestock market in all of Staffordshire, as my research had suggested. In fact there used by many, one every 12 miles at least, ensuring that no farmer had to walk his cattle more than 6 miles to market. There was a livestock auction in my own town of Newcastle-under-Lyme until 1994, but in the last few decades they have closed with farmers now having to drive their cattle to Leek or other auctions over the county borders.
Today I found myself really engaged with the animals, especially the sheep who are fascinated by the camera pointing at them. I do find something rather surreal about the sheep, of course their situation of being sold for food or breeding is something they are unaware of, but they always carry a worried look that as a human I can't help but translate anthropomorphically. As an ardent meat eater, I feel that I am gaining an understanding of the industry that feeds me, and I am not seeing anything negative at all, just people doing their best to raise their herds and flocks, to try and make a living in a hard and tough industry and economic climate.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
The Marion Dorn Room, originally a private dining room off the main restaurant.
Designed in Streamline Moderne style by architect Oliver Hill, with sculptures by Eric Gill, the hotel was built by the London Midland & Scottish Railway and opened in 1933. It finally closed in 1998 and lay derelict until it was restored in 2006-2008 and reopened as a hotel again.
Doors in the street - Christmas Wreaths 2023
Blue Plaque for Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer RWS Hon.RE (Hon. Fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers) (27 January 1805 – 24 May 1881) was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.
Palmer, who was born in Surrey Square off the Old Kent Road in Newington, London (now Walworth), was the son of a bookseller and sometime Baptist minister, and was raised by a pious nurse. Palmer painted churches from around age twelve, and first exhibited Turner-inspired works at the Royal Academy at the age of fourteen. He had little formal training, and little formal schooling, although he was educated briefly at Merchant Taylors' School.
Through John Linnell, he met William Blake in 1824. Blake's influence can be seen in work he produced over the next ten years (generally reckoned to be his greatest). The works were landscapes around Shoreham, near Sevenoaks in the west of Kent. He purchased a run-down cottage, nicknamed "Rat Abbey", and lived there from 1826 to 1835, depicting the area as a demi-paradise, mysterious and visionary, often shown in sepia shades under moon and star light. There Palmer associated with a group of Blake-influenced artists known as the Ancients (including George Richmond and Edward Calvert). They were among the few who saw the Shoreham paintings as, resulting from attacks by critics in 1825, he opened his early portfolios only to selected friends.
Palmer's somewhat disreputable father – Samuel Palmer senior – moved to the area, his brother Nathaniel having offered him an allowance that would "make him a gentleman" and restore the good name of the family. Samuel Palmer senior rented half of the Queen Anne-era 'Waterhouse' which still stands by the River Darent at Shoreham and is now known as the 'Water House'. Palmer's nurse, Mary Ward, and his other son William joined him there. The Waterhouse was used to accommodate overflow guests from "Rat Abbey". In 1828 Samuel Palmer left "Rat Abbey" to join his father at Water House and lived there for the rest of his time in Shoreham. While at Shoreham he fell in love with the fourteen-year-old Hannah Linnell, whom he later married.
After returning to London in 1835, and using a small legacy to purchase a house in Marylebone, Palmer produced less mystical and more conventional work. Part of his reason in returning to London was to sell his work and earn money from private teaching. He had better health on his return to London, and was by then married to Hannah, daughter of the painter John Linnell who he had known since she was a child, and married when she was nineteen and he was thirty-two. He sketched in Devonshire and Wales around this time. His peaceful vision of rural England had been disrupted by the violent rural discontent of the early 1830s. His small financial legacy was running out and he decided to produce work more in line with public taste if he was to earn an income for himself and his wife. He was following the advice of his father-in-law. Linnell, who had earlier shown remarkable understanding of the uniqueness of William Blake's genius, was not as generous with his son-in-law, towards whom his attitude was authoritarian and often harsh.
Palmer turned more to watercolour which was gaining popularity in England. To further a commercial career, the couple embarked on a two-year honeymoon to Italy, made possible by money from Hannah's parents in 1837. In Italy Palmer's palette became brighter, sometimes to the point of garishness, but he made many fine sketches and studies that would later be useful in producing new paintings. On his return to London, Palmer sought patrons with limited success. For more than two decades he was obliged to work as a private drawing master, until he moved from London in 1862. To add to his financial worries, he returned to London to find his dissolute brother William had pawned all his early paintings, and Palmer was obliged to pay a large sum to redeem them. By all accounts Palmer was an excellent teacher, but the work with uninspired students reduced the time he could devote to his own art.
From the early 1860s he gained some measure of critical success for his later landscapes, which had a touch of the early Shoreham work about them – most notable is the etching of The Lonely Tower (1879). He became a full member of the Water Colour Society in 1854, and its annual show gave him a yearly goal to work towards.
His best late works include a series of large watercolours illustrating Milton's poems L'Allegro and Il Penseroso and his etchings, a medium in which he worked from 1850 onwards, including a set illustrating Virgil.
Palmer's later years were darkened by the death in 1861, at the age of 19, of his elder son Thomas More Palmer – a devastating blow from which he never fully recovered. He lived in various places later in his life, including a small cottage and an unaffordable villa both in Kensington, where he lived at 6 Douro Place, then a cottage at Reigate. But it was only when a small measure of financial security came his way, that was he able to move to Furze Hill House in Redhill, Surrey, from 1862. He could not afford to have a daily newspaper delivered to Redhill, suggesting that his financial circumstances there were still tight.
Palmer died in Redhill, Surrey, and is buried with his wife in St Mary's, Reigate churchyard.
Palmer was largely forgotten after his death. In 1909, many of his Shoreham works were destroyed by his surviving son Alfred Herbert Palmer, who burnt "a great quantity of father's handiwork ... Knowing that no one would be able to make head or tail of what I burnt; I wished to save it from a more humiliating fate". The destruction included "sketchbooks, notebooks, and original works, and lasted for days". Interest in his work was rekindled in 1926 by a show curated by Martin Hardie at the Victoria & Albert Museum: Drawings, Etchings and Woodcuts made by Samuel Palmer and other Disciples of William Blake. In the ensuing decades, the publication of two important books and the presentation of another London exhibition combined to trigger a surge in his popularity: Geoffrey Grigson's, Samuel Palmer: The Visionary Years (280 pages, with 68 photo illustrations, 1947), the Arts Council of Great Britain’s 1956-57 exhibition: Samuel Palmer and his circle - The Shoreham period, and Grigson's follow-up, Samuel Palmer's Valley of Vision (forty-eight plates, a selection of Palmer's writings, 1960). In the 1930s, the maximum price a Shoreham period drawing brought was around £50. Three sold in the early 1960s — Weald of Kent, The Evening Star, and Cow Lodge with a Mossy Roof — for £6000, £5200, and £7200. Leger Gallery purchased the diminutive watercolour The Golden Valley in 1969 for £14,000. In a 2003 auction at Christie’s, it brought £587,650.
The renewed popularity of his Shoreham work influenced a succession of English artists, notably F. L. Griggs, Robin Tanner, Graham Sutherland, Paul Drury, Joseph Webb, Eric Ravilious, John Minton, the glass engraving of Laurence Whistler, Franklin White[citation needed] and Clifford Harper. He also inspired a resurgence in twentieth-century landscape printmaking, which began amongst students at Goldsmiths' College in the 1920s. (See: Jolyon Drury, 2006)
Palmer received a great deal of media attention in the 1970s, following the discovery of a number of fakes of his Shoreham work produced by famous art forger, Tom Keating. In February 1970, Geraldine Norman, Sale Room Correspondent for The Times, published a glowing report on a rare Shoreham Palmer painting, which 'probably dates from 1831', Shepherds with their Flock under a Full Moon, that was purchased by a major Bond Street gallery for £9400. At the top of the page was a four-column-width photo of the picture. A month later, David Gould, an authority on Victorian paintings with a special interest in Palmer, wrote a Letter to the Editor calling it a fake.
In June 1973, Norman reported that a Palmer landscape, The Horse Chestnut Tree, sold at Sotheby’s for £15,000. Shortly thereafter, Gould privately alleged to Norman that it too, was dubious. In 1974 Gould told Norman he had identified six more Palmer fakes, and he believed all were done by the same hand.
In 1976, Norman began researching over a dozen suspect Palmers, and after consulting with recognized Palmer experts from the Ashmolean, Fitzwilliam, Tate, and British Museums, as well as author Geoffrey Grigson, she published an article on 16 July 1976, on page one of The Times, asserting that thirteen Palmer pictures that had appeared on the market over the previous decade were forgeries. Several tips from readers convinced her the master faker she was looking for was Tom Keating, a picture restorer in Dedham, Essex, whom she named in another page one article the following month. A few days later, Keating wrote a Letter to The Times, confessing to ‘flooding the market’ with fakes –– not for material gain, but rather as a protest against greedy art merchants –– adding that he couldn’t imagine how anyone could believe his ‘crude daubs’ were authentic. The lead story in the Daily Express the same day read, ‘I FAKED THE LOT!’
The following week, Mr. Hugh Leggatt, a well-respected art dealer in Westminster, offered to host an exhibition of Keating’s ‘Palmers’ at his gallery in St James's Street. The Cecil Higgins Museum in Bedford had a Palmer called A Barn at Shoreham, purchased in 1965, on advice by Edward Croft Murray, the Keeper of Pictures at the British Museum, that it was authentic. They took it down in August 1976 when it was discovered to be a Keating fake. They rehung it four months later. Museum trustees commented ‘that there seemed to be more public interest in the drawing now it was known to be a fake than there had been in the genuine article.’ A Barn at Shoreham remains on view in the museum's art store.
Norman went on to publish a total of eleven articles on the scandal, from July 1976 to February 1977, for which she won the British Press Awards News Reporter of the Year. In June 1977 she published an essay on Art Trading and Art Faking, in Keating’s autobiography, as well as a companion book The Tom Keating Catalogue, with descriptions and photo illustrations of 166 of his known pastiches, including 26 Palmers, which she hoped would provide scholars, collectors, and art dealers with sufficient information to detect his work, and help locate and identify as many of them as possible.
Keating later claimed to have painted upwards of eighty fake Palmers, most of them moonlit scenes in dark sepia wash, heightened with white. Four of them sold for thousands of pounds each, including The Horse Chestnut Tree, which Sotheby’s auctioned in June 1973 for £15,000 — ‘a record price for the artist’. These same four pictures were illustrated in James Sellars’ 1974 monograph, Samuel Palmer, and their sales resulted in Keating being arrested and put on trial for art fraud at the Old Bailey in 1979. He was later released due to failing health, and all charges were dropped. In the May 1977 BBC1 documentary, A Picture of Tom Keating, the master forger, commenting on Palmer’s captivating self portrait (see at top of this page), called him ‘a child genius, who’s eyes stare at me with a majesty and beauty... I look back on them now and say I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done, because his name is now more famous than ever.’
Times journalist David Carritt replied: ‘How insulting Palmer would have found the new stock...his magic vision diluted by a crop of heartless impostures, conceived in spite and peddled for gain’.
On the bicentenary of the artist’s birth, a major retrospective showcasing a hundred and seventy of his watercolours, drawings, etchings and oils from public and private collections around the world, was organized by the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exhibited first in London from October 2005 to January 2006, then in New York from March to May 2006, Samuel Palmer: Vision and Landscape, emphasized his early work, but included more naturalistic watercolours, such as Scene from Lee, and A Cascade in Shadow, from his travels in Devon and Wales (1834-1836), as well as Cypresses at the Villa d'Este, and A View of Ancient Rome, from an ill-fated, two-year sojourn to Italy, with his new bride Hannah and his friend, George Richmond, and his wife (1837-38). The show concluded with works done after his return to England in 1840, such as the watercolour, Christian Descending into the Valley of Humiliation and the etchings, The Weary Ploughman, The Bellman, and The Lonely Tower.
In 2012, the Fine Art Society staged Samuel Palmer, His Friends and Followers, a London exhibition of Palmer’s influential visionary landscapes, along with works by Edward Calvert, George Richmond, Frederick Griggs, Paul Drury, Graham Sutherland, and Robin Tanner.
Park Hill Farm, Hales, Shropshire. November 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Pat Pimlott was kind enough to allow me to visit and photograph on their farm near Loggerheads. Park Hill produce 'happy meat', beef and pork which they take to sell at markets in and around Staffordshire under their own brand. With award winning sausages and an approach that prioritises animal welfare, they produce great tasting meat with a concentration on the ecology and welfare of their historic farm. Pat also welcomes many schools by arrangement, giving young people an insight into farming life and the reality of where meat comes from.
I spent a few hours wandering their land, investigating the hundred year old barn, the jittery young cattle, the curious pigs and the landscape itself. I was particularly interested in the old which has been used since around 1900 and today houses the adult cattle through the worst of our winter weather. It was a milking shed when Pat's father ran it after the war, and I was fascinated with the details left behind from that era. I do plan to return to Park Hill Farm in the early Spring, hopefully to catch them working in the fields with the animals and also to get some more detail shots in the old barn, but with a tripod this time so that I can do it justice. A wonderful day, and my thanks go to Pat for allowing me to be there and spending so much time talking me through their current practices and past histories.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
My Great Outdoors Competition Entries
I just couldn’t resist doing this, yes there really are a lot of other things that really do need my full and undivided attention RIGHT NOW, but I just couldn’t resist doing it...for my idea, this idea you realise, not for this competition per se.
Then although at the beginning they looked mildly Ravilious-ish in tone, in the end they wound up as being closer to Alois Carigiet; ach it would appear that after so many years of living down here even my eyes have finally become wholly European in their habits (:
The Christmas Dressed Poultry Sale at Leek Livestock Auction, Leek, Staffordshire. December 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
A third visit to Leek Livestock Auction, but this time for the Christmas Dressed Poultry auction which attracts a mixture of rural people and those city folk who are in the know.
This was a frenetic few hours with hundreds of turkeys being auctioned, as well as a quantity of geese, ducks and other poultry, even live birds. Since I was there I decided to purchase a turkey for my own Christmas dinner and my vegetarian fiance got over excited and bid on a huge turkey, but at close to £1 per pound, the price was fantastic.
Auctioneers, Bruce Daniel and Robert Watkins took turns on the podium, with Graham Watkins and Mark Elliott amongst others running the floor. People from all walks of life were there and I will certainly be back every year for my annual turkey purchase.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Dairy Cottage Farm, Apedale, Staffordshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Dairy Cottage, despite the name, is a large beef farm which also produces feed (silage and haylage) for their own cattle and for sale to other local farms. With a mixture of modern and very old building as well as some antique farm machinery, this was a wonderful place to spend a day and the family really made me feel welcome and were happy to take part in The Rural Eye project.
The weather was very poor on this day and all the cattle were of course in for the winter, but I will be returning in the next season to photograph again and catch the farm under different conditions.
Many thanks to Tracey, Royston and Tom Pepper.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
First two pages of a brilliant eight page article by Arnold Bennett, from the beautifully produced: ‘The Legion Book’ published in 1929 by Cassell and printed by the Curwen Press. You can find a description of the book here: archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-october-1929/41/the-p....
And it’s contents here: www.worldcat.org/title/legion-book/oclc/1071148.
There are also many marvellous illustrations, including one by Eric Ravilious.
Dairy Cottage Farm, Apedale, Staffordshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Dairy Cottage, despite the name, is a large beef farm which also produces feed (silage and haylage) for their own cattle and for sale to other local farms. With a mixture of modern and very old building as well as some antique farm machinery, this was a wonderful place to spend a day and the family really made me feel welcome and were happy to take part in The Rural Eye project.
The weather was very poor on this day and all the cattle were of course in for the winter, but I will be returning in the next season to photograph again and catch the farm under different conditions.
Many thanks to Tracey, Royston and Tom Pepper.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
'그림책의 모든 것'에 나온 에릭 레빌리어스(Eric Ravilious)의 "'High Street'":https://www.google.co.kr/search?q=eric+ravilious+high+street&newwindow=1&hl=ko&espv=1&sboxchip=%EC%9D%B4%EB%AF%B8%EC%A7%80&tbm=isch&source=lnt&tbs=isz:l&sa=X&ei=Eb6_UoXsBsjDkgXmuoDgDg&ved=0CBcQpwUoAQ&dpr=2&biw=1024&bih=672# (미투북 동화)posted by yuna
The Christmas Dressed Poultry Sale at Leek Livestock Auction, Leek, Staffordshire. December 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
A third visit to Leek Livestock Auction, but this time for the Christmas Dressed Poultry auction which attracts a mixture of rural people and those city folk who are in the know.
This was a frenetic few hours with hundreds of turkeys being auctioned, as well as a quantity of geese, ducks and other poultry, even live birds. Since I was there I decided to purchase a turkey for my own Christmas dinner and my vegetarian fiance got over excited and bid on a huge turkey, but at close to £1 per pound, the price was fantastic.
Auctioneers, Bruce Daniel and Robert Watkins took turns on the podium, with Graham Watkins and Mark Elliott amongst others running the floor. People from all walks of life were there and I will certainly be back every year for my annual turkey purchase.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Market Drayton Livestock Auction, Shropshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Another engaging trip to Market Drayton, albeit on a very cold day. I took a large number of prints from the other visits up with me and gave them to Bob Oakes and the staff as a thank you for their help. It was nice to see him take them around and show them to people who were featured and I will need to ask him to put some names to those faces in a future visit.
I was planning to leave the cattle out for the most part, and so I concentrated on the people and again with a mixture of formalised portraits and reportage. There is something very beautiful about the background interiors at this site, particularly in black and white, the tonal values seem to all compliment the people and their own clothing too. I did however visit the back of the building and photograph some of the animals as it was so cold that I wanted to get that across. I also photographed at the very back where I hadn't previously realised that there was an area for washing out trailers and cleaning everything off, presumably for disease control rather than pure aesthetics.
Each trip to Market Drayton Auctions leaves me inspired to keep going and gives me the belief that there are always more ways to show, to present and to make photographs, while all the time giving me such a rich subject matter in a welcoming environment.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Friday 31 May 2013.
Central Library Peterborough, Peterborough Street, Christchurch.
File Reference: 2013-05-31-DSC05662
Photo by Donna Robertson.
From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries
Market Drayton Livestock Auction, Shropshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Another engaging trip to Market Drayton, albeit on a very cold day. I took a large number of prints from the other visits up with me and gave them to Bob Oakes and the staff as a thank you for their help. It was nice to see him take them around and show them to people who were featured and I will need to ask him to put some names to those faces in a future visit.
I was planning to leave the cattle out for the most part, and so I concentrated on the people and again with a mixture of formalised portraits and reportage. There is something very beautiful about the background interiors at this site, particularly in black and white, the tonal values seem to all compliment the people and their own clothing too. I did however visit the back of the building and photograph some of the animals as it was so cold that I wanted to get that across. I also photographed at the very back where I hadn't previously realised that there was an area for washing out trailers and cleaning everything off, presumably for disease control rather than pure aesthetics.
Each trip to Market Drayton Auctions leaves me inspired to keep going and gives me the belief that there are always more ways to show, to present and to make photographs, while all the time giving me such a rich subject matter in a welcoming environment.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Market Drayton Livestock Auction, Shropshire. January 2013.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
Another engaging trip to Market Drayton, albeit on a very cold day. I took a large number of prints from the other visits up with me and gave them to Bob Oakes and the staff as a thank you for their help. It was nice to see him take them around and show them to people who were featured and I will need to ask him to put some names to those faces in a future visit.
I was planning to leave the cattle out for the most part, and so I concentrated on the people and again with a mixture of formalised portraits and reportage. There is something very beautiful about the background interiors at this site, particularly in black and white, the tonal values seem to all compliment the people and their own clothing too. I did however visit the back of the building and photograph some of the animals as it was so cold that I wanted to get that across. I also photographed at the very back where I hadn't previously realised that there was an area for washing out trailers and cleaning everything off, presumably for disease control rather than pure aesthetics.
Each trip to Market Drayton Auctions leaves me inspired to keep going and gives me the belief that there are always more ways to show, to present and to make photographs, while all the time giving me such a rich subject matter in a welcoming environment.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
'그림책의 모든 것'에 나온 에릭 레빌리어스(Eric Ravilious)의 "'High Street'":https://www.google.co.kr/search?q=eric+ravilious+high+street&newwindow=1&hl=ko&espv=1&sboxchip=%EC%9D%B4%EB%AF%B8%EC%A7%80&tbm=isch&source=lnt&tbs=isz:l&sa=X&ei=Eb6_UoXsBsjDkgXmuoDgDg&ved=0CBcQpwUoAQ&dpr=2&biw=1024&bih=672# (미투북 동화)posted by yuna
Leek Livestock Auction, Leek, Staffordshire. October 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
My second shoot for The Rural Eye archive project, and the staff and customers at Leek were really getting used to my presence and the idea that I am 'on their side' so to speak.
I had a cuppa and a long chat with Bruce Daniel, one of the senior auctioneers about the work. Bruce told me about how Leek is the last livestock market in all of Staffordshire, as my research had suggested. In fact there used by many, one every 12 miles at least, ensuring that no farmer had to walk his cattle more than 6 miles to market. There was a livestock auction in my own town of Newcastle-under-Lyme until 1994, but in the last few decades they have closed with farmers now having to drive their cattle to Leek or other auctions over the county borders.
Today I found myself really engaged with the animals, especially the sheep who are fascinated by the camera pointing at them. I do find something rather surreal about the sheep, of course their situation of being sold for food or breeding is something they are unaware of, but they always carry a worried look that as a human I can't help but translate anthropomorphically. As an ardent meat eater, I feel that I am gaining an understanding of the industry that feeds me, and I am not seeing anything negative at all, just people doing their best to raise their herds and flocks, to try and make a living in a hard and tough industry and economic climate.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...
Market Drayton Livestock Auction, Shropshire. October 2012.
Photograph by Lee William Hughes © The Rural Eye.
The Rural Eye archive project was designed to give me the opportunity to engage with a very traditional documentary practice and to be able to get out and shoot as often as I could. With 2 shoots done at Leek Auctions, I realised that Market Drayton's own livestock auction was the same distance from home in the opposite direction, and so it seems a very logical next step to go there and move the project forward.
Arriving at Market Drayton Market, I had my usual walk around the whole site, something that I always do when possible to kind of feel the place out and get an idea of the function of the site. I then visited the office and spoke directly to Mark Jones, one of the auctioneers, just to explain what I am doing and why. Mark really understood the nature of the project and was happy for me to get on the camera out and do whatever I needed.
I have to say that I was immediately welcomed in a way that was surprising and heart warming. The farmers at this site were interested in what I was doing in a positive way, and while I was still often asked whether I was 'with animal rights or not', it was not a problem at all, in fact it just gave me that window of opportunity to talk to people and explain my motivations.
To purchase prints, please click the link below and then select 'The Rural Eye Archive' folder...