David Tress

Last updated

David Tress is a British painter noted particularly for his deeply personal interpretations of landscapes in and around his home in Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales. He combines the techniques of collage and impasto with conventional painting and drawing to produce results that have been categorized as a form of abstract expressionism.

Contents

Early life

Tress was born in Wembley, northwest London, and studied at Harrow College of Art before graduating in Fine Arts from Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham (now Nottingham Trent University). In 1976 he moved to Pembrokeshire where he has lived ever since. [1]

Work and technique

Tress has followed an unorthodox route to painting. [2] He was first interested by painter Ben Nicholson, and also the watercolours of John Singer Sargent. He then came across the Abstract Expressionists which continue to be an influence. By the time he moved to Wales Tress was making film, installation and performance art. [1] In Pembrokeshire, Tress began painting local scenes in water-colour and other media, developing a highly detailed realism epitomized by works such as Winter Sun (1983) and First Sun, Preseli (1984).[ citation needed ] As well as Wales, his subjects include landscapes in Scotland, the Lake District, Ireland and southern France, along with cityscapes of London.

Honours

He was one of 48 British artists and designers commissioned by the Royal Mail for the Millennium stamp series. His design, issued in September 1999 as part of a set called The Farmers’ Tale, depicted open-field farming at Laxton near Newark, Nottinghamshire. It was also Royal Mail’s contribution to that year’s Europa postage stamp issue on the theme of Parks and Reserves.

He was the recipient of the 2013 Glyndŵr Award for an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales.

Related Research Articles

Graham Vivian Sutherland was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmaking, tapestry and glass design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Sandby</span> English map-maker and painter

Paul Sandby was an English map-maker turned landscape painter in watercolours, who, along with his older brother Thomas, became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Boyd</span> Australian painter (1920–1999)

Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd was a leading Australian painter of the middle to late 20th century. Boyd's work ranges from impressionist renderings of Australian landscape to starkly expressionist figuration, and many canvases feature both. Several famous works set Biblical stories against the Australian landscape, such as The Expulsion (1947–48), now at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Having a strong social conscience, Boyd's work deals with humanitarian issues and universal themes of love, loss and shame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Gear</span> Scottish painter

William Gear RA RBSA was a Scottish painter, most notable for his abstract compositions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Inshaw</span>

David Inshaw is a British artist who sprang to public attention in 1973 when his painting The Badminton Game was exhibited at the ICA Summer Studio exhibition in London. The painting was subsequently acquired by the Tate Gallery and is one of several paintings from the 1970s that won him critical acclaim and a wide audience. Others include The Raven, Our days were a joy and our paths through flowers, She did not turn, The Cricket Game, Presentiment and The River Bank (Ophelia).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Bush</span> Canadian artist (1909-1977)

John Hamilton Bush was a Canadian abstract painter. A member of Painters Eleven, his paintings are associated with the Color Field movement and Post-painterly Abstraction. Inspired by Henri Matisse and American abstract expressionist painters like Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis, Bush encapsulated joyful yet emotional feelings in his vibrant paintings, comparing them to jazz music. Clement Greenberg described him as a "supreme colorist", along with Kenneth Noland in 1984.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Scott (artist)</span> British artist (1913–1989)

William Scott was a prominent abstract painter from Northern Ireland, known for his themes of still life, landscape and female nudes. He is the most internationally celebrated of 20th-century Ulster painters. His early life was the subject of the film Every Picture Tells a Story, made by his son James Scott.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craigie Aitchison (painter)</span> Scottish painter

John Ronald Craigie Aitchison CBE RSA RA was a Scottish painter. He was best known for his many paintings of the Crucifixion, one of which hangs behind the altar in the chapter house of Liverpool Cathedral, Italian landscapes, and portraits. His simple style with bright, childlike colours defied description, and was compared to the Scottish Colourists, primitivists or naive artists, although Brian Sewell dismissed him as "a painter of too considered trifles".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Hoyland</span> English painter

John Hoyland RA was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters.

Founded in 1843, the School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University is one of the oldest in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Welsh art</span>

Welsh art is the traditions in the visual arts associated with Wales and its people. Most art found in, or connected with, Wales is essentially a regional variant of the forms and styles of the rest of the British Isles, a very different situation from that of Welsh literature. The term Art in Wales is often used in the absence of a clear sense of what "Welsh art" is, and to include the very large body of work, especially in landscape art, produced by non-Welsh artists in Wales since the later 18th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luke Elwes</span> British artist

Luke Andrew Cary Elwes is a British contemporary artist whose paintings capture his encounters with the landscape and with the elements. He gained prominence in the early nineties when he returned from his travels in India, Asia and North Africa with a series of key paintings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Hamilton Fraser</span> British painter

Donald Hamilton Fraser RA, was a British artist famed for his abstract landscape paintings.

Ken Kiff, was an English figurative artist, who was born in Dagenham and trained at Hornsey School of Art 1955-61. He came to prominence in the 1980s thanks to the championship of art critic Norbert Lynton, and a cultural climate intent on re-assessing figurative art following the Royal Academy's ‘New Spirit in Painting’ exhibition in 1981. He started exhibiting at Nicola Jacob's gallery, moved to Fischer Fine Art in 1987, and finally to the Marlborough Gallery in 1990, by which time he had begun exhibiting internationally and had work in major public collections. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1991 and became Associate Artist at the National Gallery 1991–93. His 30-year teaching career at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College influenced a generation of students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Knapp-Fisher</span>

John Knapp-Fisher was a British painter known particularly for his depictions of the coast of Pembrokeshire, West Wales. He worked from his studio in Croesgoch since 1967. He exhibited his paintings across Europe and also Africa and North America. In 1992 he was elected a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Cubley</span> English painter

William Harold Cubley was an English painter of landscapes and portraits in the tradition of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He studied with Sir William Beechey, and was an important early influence on Sir William Nicholson and William Caparne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reginald Hallward</span> British painter

Reginald Francis Hallward was a British artist. He was a glassmaker, poet, painter and book designer. He is best known for his stained glass and light glass works for British churches. Hallward founded a publishing business to publish his and his wife, Adelaide's, poetry. Following World War I, Hallward created war memorials in England, France and Belgium.

Barbara Davis Rae CBE RA FRSE is a Scottish painter and printmaker. She is a member of the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy of Arts.

Annabel Gault is a British artist. Born in Midhurst, she studied at West Surrey College of Art and Royal Academy Schools. She works in a variety of mediums, often painting landscapes. Some of her artwork has been purchased by Hampshire County Council for display in their buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian Berg</span> English artist (1929–2011)

Adrian Berg was an English painter known for his landscapes, many of them images of Regent's Park, London. Although some of his works appear almost naturalistic, typically they defy conventional notions of perspective and coloration. Instead they combine multiple viewpoints and time periods in a single image. His paintings are included in the permanent collections of the British Council, the British Museum, the European Parliament, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Tate, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others.

References

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 Andrew Lambirth (21 September 2013) "David Tress: an artist of independent spirit", The Spectator . Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  2. "Artist David Tress reveals the joy for his natural surroundings", Wales Online , 2 April 2013. Retrieved 5 October 2016.