30th Jul 2016 - 21st Aug 2016
University Gallery
Inspirational exhibition of landscape paintings at the University of Brighton Gallery, Grand Parade from 30 July to 21 August 2016
Opening times: Monday-Saturday 10am-5pm | Sundays 11am-5pm
Entrance is free and full colour Ian Potts Watercolours exhibition catalogues are available for purchase along with sale of over fifty original, signed watercolour paintings by Ian Potts.
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The University of Brighton is hosting a major retrospective exhibition of watercolour landscapes by the late Ian Potts at the Grand Parade Gallery from Saturday 30 July to Sunday 21 August 2016.
Ian Potts is an important British watercolour landscape artist whose work has been added to several public collections, including The V&A Museum and Ashmolean. He was for many years a tutor in painting at the college and his work has been exhibited at numerous galleries in Britain, France and Italy, the most recent in London shortly before his death in May 2014.
Christopher Le Brun, President of the Royal Academy of Arts says, "I am sure the exhibition will be a revelation to those who do not know of Ian's work and a welcome reminder and deepening of experience for those who do."
The works being shown in Brighton this summer are of land and seascapes from Brighton, Hastings, Bath, Windsor and the Lake District to wider Europe, including France, Italy, Spain, Egypt, Yugoslavia and Greece. The one oil landscape is a large, early work depicting Brighton’s lost West Pier.
William Packer - art critic for the Financial Times 1974 – 2004: “Ian Potts is a serious painter, whose work with watercolour is as ambitious as painting ever need be."
Ian lived in Lewes for many years and was an innovative force at Brighton College of Art - subsequently the University of Brighton school of Art - from the 1950s until 1995. As Head of Painting and Deputy Head of Fine Art, he assembled a team which included Antony Gormley, Dennis Creffield, Madeleine Strindberg and Brendan Neiland, all of whom have had considerable influence on the development of British painting.
Anne Boddington, Dean of the University of Brighton, says, "This inspiring and beautiful exhibition is a retrospective celebration of Ian’s life as an artist and the development of his painting and is hosted by the University of Brighton in honour of his achievements during the 40 years he taught here".
Private view and press: 29 July from 4pm.
See Ian Potts' profile on the Arts and Humanities associates' page.
Further information about the exhibition
It is appropriate that the exhibition Ian Potts: Watercolours – the first retrospective of the work of Ian Potts – has been organised by the University of Brighton, in collaboration with the initiators and curators of the show, Helen Potts, the late artist's wife, and daughter Clare Potts.
Ian Potts (1936 - 2014) began working part-time at Brighton in the late 1950s and became full-time there in 1963. He would go on to become Head of Painting and also hold the posts of Course Leader and Deputy Head of Fine Art. Right up to his retirement in 1995, Ian did a great deal both to enhance and to help develop the regional, national and international reputation of an institution which, during Ian's illustrious career, developed from an art school into a polytechnic, before finally acquiring university status in 1992.
The family have been working with the students as well as their staff. Members of the Graphic Design BA(Hons) course have worked to deliver a coherent, contemporary and sympathetic identity for the exhibition and accompanying collateral, including the posters and catalogue. Second year students Amy Vein, Jessica Sampson and Ellie Rose have been working with their tutor, Gavin Ambrose, on this exciting collaboration.
‘This generosity of spirit has given the students an opportunity to work on a live job, engage with the ‘client’, and to research and investigate typographic detailing and image representation and reproduction.’ Gavin Ambrose.
Ian Potts Watercolours exhibition catalogues are available from the university online shop 14.99 + p&p.
Watercolour paintings on sale will range between £80 and £3000. All are signed and will be accompanied by a certificate of provenance from the artist's studio and estate.
The following samples are among more than fifty works in the sale.
