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At the Albany Bar John Lipsham

At the Albany Bar

Colourful characters

Galleries change atmosphere as they change exhibitions. As HOT reporter Lauris Morgan-Griffiths walked into the Stables Gallery, she was met by a rogue’s gallery of colourful faces. Real characters adorn the walls – sailors, bee-hived bar girls, ladies of the night, dancers – all looking as if they are swathed in the past and have a story or two to tell.

John Lipsham

Shipwrights working

The custodian of their tales is John Lipsham, who was brought up in the Portsmouth Dockyard.  He clearly loved the environment and that way of life, when there were over 20,000 men at the docks – sailors, welders, fitters, boilermakers, blacksmiths, joiners. As depicted in Spirit of Portsmouth Dockyard, there was always  a mass of action and, standing out amongst the bustle and the great looming ship hulks, was the blue and white of the sailors uniforms.

John, an apprentice at 16, was rather overawed by it all, but loved looking through pub windows to see the colourful scenes, the sailors, the women all dressed up.  And that fascination and intrigue is still as vivid today, as he reimagines those strong faces in paint.

They are striking oil paintings.  It is the black lines of the angles that really distinguish his work – the faces, the colours, the hair.  In the Albany Bar, a sailor sits quietly with a lady – his girl, a woman of the night, who knows? – but she is sufficiently flambuoyantly dressed for another sailor to be furtively glancing at her. The three are looking in different directions.  John admits “I don’t know what

Woman with Red Hair John Lipsham

Woman with Red Hair

I’m thinking when I’m painting , I just love the shapes, the lines, the angles”.   The lines appear again in Woman with Red Hair, an austere looking lady with a tangle of red hair; a Ratcatcher stares soberly out, a cheeky-looking dog held in his hand, angles of cranes sprouting in the background.  A line of Moldavian, hand-clenched Dancers energetically lean to the left, as they hoof into the wings.  At that point, friend and  artist Bruce Williams walks in and as he strides past the dancers he pronounces: “That’s a cracker, John.”

To learn that Modigliani is one of his favourite painters is no surprise. You can see the influence in elongated faces, the slant of a nose and sharp shapes drifting into a tree, a church spire and the bulk of a ship.  That said, it is John’s own particular take on Modigliani; he likes the essence and has taken that onwards and into his own artistic journey.

John Lipsham

Landscape with church

John uses different techniques: from layered paint, to flat, to impressionistic. He uses brushwork, pallet knife and even pushes the paint around with his hands to create an effervescent impressionistic Fruit and Flowers.  There is also a hint of a move towards abstract.  In some paintings, like Landscape with church, you can see a transition beginning.  “I love abstract and I would like to go that way, but I don’t know quite how to yet.”

Previously a Sunday painter, it is only recently that John has been able to paint full-time. He did not stay at the docks, but joined the police force, ten years of which was spent with the Art and Antiques Squad, tracing stolen paintings and identifying forgeries. After circulating the description of a stolen painting by Frank Cadogan-Cowper, the Squad received a phone call from one of the London auction houses that someone had put it up for sale with them.  John didn’t recognise the name of the person, but he did the address.  They subsequently recovered  an entire houseful of stolen goods  from a Dorset house, which took several transit van loads to transport to the police station. Eventually the offender was found guilty of handling stolen property and sent down.  Oddly, those 30 years in the police are not reflected in his art. It is the dockyard that still looms large in his imagination.

On retirement, John went to Brighton University as a student to do a fine art degree. He is now exhibited in Hastings and London; last year, his work was very proudly exhibited as part of the Royal Society of Marine Artists at the Mall Gallery  in London.

In the corner is a glass cabinet with some of John’s drawing.  It is always interesting to see an artist’s process:  dark lines of sketches, which are then simplified down to the angular, en route to abstract; a girl at the piano, slightly Picasso-esque, “which  I tried painting, but it just didn’t work.”  Anything that doesn’t meet his critical criterion, he destroys;  he doesn’t want anything that doesn’t meet with his 100% approval to appear unannounced.  However, there is no question that these paintings do.

Show Time is at The Stables Art Gallery,
The Bourne, Hastings TN34 3BD
Mon–Sat 10.30am–2pm and 6–8pm until 30 March.

John Lipsham’s paintings  can also be seen at The Burton Gallery, Marine Court, St Leonards-on-Sea. 

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Posted 17:12 Monday, Feb 11, 2013 In: Visual Arts

1 Comment

  1. derek medway

    i remember john from the 60s i remember riding back from banbury with john pilion after looking at bsa gold star motor cycles we got slightly lost and ended up in brighton instead of portsmouth after seeing a strange green light shining upwards. we ended up in.an all night coffee bar. we were shipwright apprentices together at portsmouth dockyard. we were both artisticly incligned.its nice to see you kept your interest. It must be nearly 50 years since we last met

    Comment by derek medway — Tuesday, Jun 3, 2014 @ 03:19

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