Bob Crossley FINAL

Castlegate House Gallery 20th Century British & Contemporary Art Bob Crossley – Early Works 15th April, 2021 to 15th May, 2021 1

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Bob Crossley - Early Works Born in Cheshire in 1912, Bob Crossley was still painting into his penultimate year. to spend much of his childhood and forma- tive adult years living in Rochdale, to the We first came across Bob Crossley and his north east of Manchester. Leaving school work over 20 years ago on a trip to Corn- aged 14, Bob trained as a sign writer before wall. Very much pre our Castlegate days, we entering the RAF during the second world discovered his Rochdale background, some- war. where we both also originally hark from. There was a commonality there which, to be Upon demobilisation he attended drawing frank, took us no further. classes and joined the Rochdale Art Society and was accepted into the Manchester Acad- Fast forward many more years and early in emy of Fine Arts, building on his apparent our Castlegate tenure we came across works skill and success with his first London solo by Bob which were wholly different from exhibition at the Reid Gallery in 1960. Ad- those we’d seen in his Cornish studio; works ditionally, Bob was to exhibit with The Lon- straight from the mid-century, pure unadul- don Group and the Paris Salon. Bob further terated post-war modernism, semi-abstract exhibited in London and Madrid, with retro- figurative painting from an era many, in- spectives in both his hometown of Rochdale cluding us, believe was the zenith of British and latterly St. Ives. 20th century ingenuity, energy and expres- sion through art. Drawn to the artist community of St. Ives, Bob was to move to Cornwall in 1959, join- With so few of Bob Crossley’s mid-century ing the famous Penwith Society of Arts the paintings surviving, we’re proud to be able following year. Initially an artist focusing on to present a small gathering of works from figurative works firmly as part of a post-war that era. All were painted between 1958 and modernism in painting, Bob was to become 1961. Looking at them, they couldn’t be from well known in latter years as an energetic any other era and that’s intrinsically part of abstract artist, influenced no doubt by his their magic. friend Terry Frost. Bob died in 2010, aged 98, Steve and Christine Swallow Front cover: Figures Watching a Fire, 1958, (detail), 30 x 20 cm 3 Left: Family Group, 1960, 122 x 92 cm

Above: Clown, 1961, 91 x 61 cm Right: Figure With Cases, 1961, 122 x 61 cm 4





Above: Ochre Figure, 1960, 60.5 x 45.5 cm Left: Startled figure, 1960, 91 x 61 cm 7

Primeval Figure, 1960, 60 x 45 cm

Cover pages Above left/front cover Figures Watching a Fire, 1958, 30 x 20 cm Above right/inside front cover Family Group, 1960, 122 x 92 cm Right/back cover Medieval Warrior, 1959, 123 x 93 cm Castlegate House Gallery, Cockermouth, Cumbria, CA13 9HA www.castlegatehouse.co.uk [email protected] 01900 822149 or 07920 836 874 9

Castlegate House Gallery, Cockermouth, Cumbria, CA13 9HA 10 www.castlegatehouse.co.uk