Roy Petley

Roy Petley
Born 3 April 1950 (age 65)
Grantham, Lincolnshire
Nationality British
Known for Painter
Movement Impressionism

Roy Petley (born 3 April 1950 ) is a British painter.

Petley paints en plein air to depict the wide expanse of English beaches and the gentle allure of Venetian landscapes. His works have been likened to those of John Constable, Edward Seago, and Campbell Mellon, British painters whose styles were influenced by the Barbizon School and Impressionism.

Beginning life in a children's home, he became one of the first artists to open an art gallery in Cork Street, a prestigious street lined with art galleries in London's Mayfair. His works are popularly collected by British royalty, including Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

Early life and background

The first-born son of a large family, Roy Petley was born on 3 April 1951 in Grantham, Lincolnshire. When he was five, Petley was abandoned to the Woodlands School near Uckfield, Sussex. The school also doubled as a home for abandoned children. He escaped his rough and often violent surroundings through art, teaching himself how to paint and draw.

At the age of sixteen, he received a scholarship to study art at Brighton University. But the pull of Italy and the country's old masters of art such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo proved too much. After a semester at Brighton University, he hitchhiked to Italy, settling in Florence where he eked out a living by drawing tourists who frequent the numerous cafes of the city, and studied the classics at the Uffizi Gallery and Palazzo Pitti. It was also in Florence that Petley had the chance to work with the collections of old master prints and drawings of the Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi Gallery.


Roy Petley paints light; it is his passion. Every image he creates is alive with light; it reveals and conceals, taking possession of space. Whether he is painting sky, water or the human figure he uses a mass of colours revealing them through subdued lights. These colours, which arethe very material of which the light is made, pulsate with life. Roy interprets rather than reproduces nature. He does not take the viewer by the hand and point out every nuance of the view before him. He hints and cajoles; this is poetry rather than pedantry. A subject as prosaic as a Norfolk village is rendered poetic by his form, his colours and, most especially, his light. Following in the tradition of John Constable, John Sell Coteman and Edward Seago, Petley summons up the drama and lowering threat of those huge Norfolk skies which relegate mankind to a walk-on role. In depicting nature versus man he establishes an empathy with the viewer; there is almost a ‘madeleine-moment’ when we are taken back to a shared experience and want to say ‘Yes, it was justlike that!’ Constable said that he had never seen an ugly thing in his life because whatever forman object might take ‘light, shade and perspective’ would always render it beautiful. Likewise Petley’ssense of beauty is not that of the object itself but of light and shade. In his nudes the figures and the backgrounds constitute a whole; the same light which caresses the female figure also caresses the background features. At the same time he casts light as a player in the mise-en-scène of his painting, especially when he places his models contre-jour. The resulting translucence renders the nudes ethereal, almost otherworldly; they have an innocence which beguiles. There is a stillness about them which renders them unthreatening to the viewer; thereis no interchange, no sexual connotation. When he wishes to emphasise the sensual, rather than the sexual, Roy executes his nudes in sanguine. The figures in his pastoral scenes have a romantic, idealised, out-of-time quality which is veryappealing and, again, veryseductive. Wewish to share the same time and the same place with these people; we wish to be a part of the scene. This is Roy’s gift, he is able to render what he sees around him with such a straightforward and uncritical eye that we, the onlookers, are seduced into sharing with him his optimistic, unclouded view of the world. Síle Connaughton-Deeny

Career

Petley was only seventeen when he returned to England in 1968. At first, he headed for Belfast, Northern Ireland where the Bell Gallery provided support and encouragement for the young artist. But after some time in Ireland, Petley returned to London and succeeded in exhibiting his paintings in the galleries of the city's high-end shops, such as Liberty's and Heal's. To support his art, he worked in the art department of the Greenwich Theatre.

By the age of 21, Petley left the theatre world altogether and began exhibiting his works on the railings of Green Park in London. In the 70s, the perimeter of the park was home to mostly struggling local artists selling their works to the passing public. Exhibiting on Sundays, the Green Park railings were then respectably called "The Open Air Art Show". Though this tradition still continues, railings has since been occupied by individuals peddling tourist gifts and paintings made in China. He achieved minor success with American art dealers who took great interest in his work.

Following a chance encounter with The Duchess of Kent, a member of the late Queen Mother's household staff came to look at his works. Soon after William Tallon, the late Queen Mother's steward, returned to her with Petley's portrait study of Prince Charles, Petley was summoned to the Palace. Thus began the artist's long-standing friendship with the British Royals, which includes HRH The Prince of Wales, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and The Duchess of Norfolk as his supporters. Exhibitions ensued in London and Dublin, and in places as far away as Dallas, Texas and the island of Barbados.

Art

In every work of art, Petley incorporates a play of light and shadows. As he moves from his natural medium of oil to watercolour or pastel to sanguine, there remains a certain youthful light emanates from his paintings. A plein air painter, his works reflect his surroundings - from the quiet beaches of Norfolk and the picturesque parks of Paris, to his subtle nudes draped with sheets and sunlight. He captures the romanticism of days gone by, with nary a modern automobile or electrical appliance blemishing his canvas.

Renowned British art critic, Brian Sewell, described Petley as "a painter who still paints, who brushes watercolour onto paper and oil paint onto canvas, a painter who even settles down to draw the nude from life - an absurdly old-fashioned discipline for an artist to pursue."[1]

Petleys

Petleys is a fine art gallery based in London. It was first known as Petley Fine Art. In October 2003, with his son Jason and a business partner, Petley established the London gallery with the intent of providing opportunities and promoting the work of other artists. The gallery is located in Cork Street, home of numerous art galleries of great repute, the Royal Academy of Arts, and based in the affluent Mayfair district of London. In the spring of 2004, a second gallery was opened in Monte Carlo and the gallery often participated in the Monte Carlo Fine Art & Antiques Fair. The gallery's line-up of artists include established portrait painters Neil Forster, whose sitters have included the HRH Prince of Wales and Martin Yeoman, who is a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters; as well as international artists such as Vincente Romero from Spain and Yuri Krotov from Russia. On June 2009, Petley Fine Art was reformed into Petleys.

To view gallery of works and published articles on Roy Petley, click here

List of exhibitions

Collections

See also

References

  1. ↑ p.10, Brian Sewell. Roy Petley. (David Messum Fine Art, UK, 1994). ISBN 1-871208-59-9
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