THEA DUPAYS
We are delighted to present this Special Collection for your viewing.
Background:
Thea was evacuated to Exmoor during WW2, and lived a free range existence for the duration of the war. Roaming the countryside with other children, drawing and painting directly from Nature, not only honed her artistic skills but led to the realisation at a very young age that she wanted to be an Artist. Aged 16 and already a highly proficient draughtswoman she was able to attend Goldsmiths College 2 years early, graduating at 20. The training there was very academic focusing on Life Drawing, the discipline of drawing that was to become the foundation of her work.
Joining her new husband in Northern Nigeria, West Africa, she set about recording life in the bustling markets and villages. This was inspiring and fascinating subject matter which also translated into illustrating publishing projects. Returning to England after 5 years, Thea continued to work around a growing family, using every day domestic subject matter - children, gardens, and still lives influenced by French Impressionists Bonnard, Monet, Degas, Renoir and Matisse.
A chance meeting with the landscape painter Anthony Rossiter led to Thea developing a close friendship with both Anthony and his UWE Bristol Fine Art teaching colleagues, Robert Hurdle and David Ferguson. They offered her a combination of artistic mentorship and companionship to help advance her practice, which lasted for several decades.
Later in her career Thea used her travels to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, as well as closer to home in Scotland and Cornwall, to develop her love of landscape, often working “en plein air” which gave her work an exciting immediacy.
Thea mostly works in oils, in a strong, distinct figurative style which has changed little. Her painting features warm, rich, colours in simple, bold compositions. They communicate a timeless, meditative mood be it a still life, a landscape or a portrait. Her home environment, the gardens her husband lovingly created, and the Somerset landscape are all documented through the changing seasons.Now at 90 years old, failing eyesight has limited the scope and scale of her work, however she still loves to draw for pleasure.
Curriculum Vitae
Thea Dupays – Artist
DOB 14.1.1934 London
1940 - Evacuated to Exmoor from London
1950 - 54 Goldsmith’s College, London: Diploma in Fine Art, Painting
1954-60 Married and posted to Northern Nigeria, W. Africa for husband’s work as District Officer overseeing the transition to Independence.
Illustrated Nigerian language Education and Story Books for Longman’s and Oxford University Press. Worked on personal Figurative and Landscape painting and drawing throughout this period.
1961- 68 Opened a Prep Boarding school linked to The Park School, Bath. Art Teacher at the Park School. Continued with personal work and commissions.
1968-79 Founder and Hotelier, the Priory Hotel and Restaurant Bath - Continued with personal work and commissions, sold work exhibited in the hotel.
1978 - 1989 Founder and Hotelier, Hunstrete House Hotel and Restaurant, Pensford. Continued
with personal work and commissions, sold work exhibited in the hotel.
1989 - 2012 Retired and returned to painting full time, living in Batcombe, Somerset.
2012-24 - Moved to Bruton, Somerset.
Exhibitions:
1969/2003 Royal Portrait Society / Mall Gallery, London.
1980 onwards Royal West of England Academy, Bristol. Selected for the Autumn Open Exhibitions. Won the Portrait Prize.
Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions
2005 Guggleton Gallery, Dorset
1987-2022 Member of The Bath Society of Artists. Exhibited at the BSA exhibition Victoria Art
Gallery, Bath annually.
2020 - BSA exhibition shown at the RUH NHS Trust, Bath.
1988 - 2023 Member of Bruton Arts Society - Exhibited annually in Bruton. Won the Landscape Award 2019
2002-2022 Somerset Arts Week Open Studios: Exhibited annually in her Batcombe and Bruton studios.
STEVE PHILBEY
Steve Philbey 19th June 1943 - 31st August 2022
Steve Philbey was a painter, muralist, graphic artist, photographer and chronicler of The Saint-Just Mob. And also variously a factory worker, father Christmas, painter and decorator, film extra, demolition worker and Victoria Line tunneller.
He has work in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art Utrecht, Artists Union Moscow, Russell Coates Museum Bournemouth, The Photographers Gallery London, The Williamson Art Gallery and Museum Birkenhead and The Victoria and Albert Museum London. Steve was also known as Steve Dorley-Brown.
"When the drawings and paintings are examined closely they seem to yield extra information, but few give an exact key of the process involved, in this sense I think they are exceptional. They embody a considerable variety both in form and mood, and they provide information about the systems on which they are based when considered fully. What I like is when your eye travels around one of your paintings, one might find that in one direction, say, vertically, the colour of series of elements changes, simultaneously another series progressing horizontally changes as well and I do like the one with discs as they seem to help the entire orchestration of the painting. At least the process is logical and very complex. What is interesting however, is that having decided on vertical, diagonal and horizontal lines, the range of colours and forms, and the system which will manipulate the result is quite unforeseeable to both you and the artist’s audience.
I Feel that the very notion of having a system in relation to making paintings is often anathema to those that who value the mysterious and the intuitive, the free and and the expressionist in Art. Systems nevertheless dispense neither with intuition or mystery. Intuition is instrumental in the design of the system and mystery always remains in the final result. The paintings and drawings are in the truest sense experiments since each work consists of new propositions and their unexpected outcomes"
Howard Pierce, painter & graphic artist.
