22nd December 2011 Happy Christmas!

The third year of ELEVEN AND A HALF is almost at an end. In 2011 we've travelled the length and breadth of the country to attend three art fairs and put on four exhibitions. In 2012 we already have several plans, including art fairs in Glasgow (March), Chelsea (April) and a joint show of paintings by Michael Praed and Terry Whybrow in April and May. This latter exhibition will be held for a week in London and will then move for to Cornwall for a second week, giving people in both regions a chance to view the show. More details on all of our plans here.

We'd like to thank everyone who attended one of our shows or fairs in 2011. We hope to see you again in the New Year. Merry Christmas to all.

8th December 2011 Xmas show

Our 3rd Christmas Show has just finished. Last week we spent at the A&D Gallery on Chiltern Street in the West End, exhibiting paintings by Ben Catt, Neil Davies, John Piper, Simon Pooley, Michael Praed and Terry Whybrow, as well as ceramics by Lincoln Kirby Bell. If you didn't manage to attend you can see some of the work that we showed here. Alternatively, we've left a small selection of paintings and ceramics with Danny and Helen at the A&D Gallery which you can go and see until Christmas.

24th October 2011 Other Artists

We've recently added some new paintings to our other painters page. Most of our artists we have a permanent relationship with, and receive their new paintings from time to time. The paintings on the other painters page are those that we have for sale from private sellers, by artists we do not normally represent. They are all well-known artists from West Cornwall.

We've recently added new paintings by Roy Ray and Shirley Foote (image below). If you are interested in having a look at any of these paintings, please contact us using the link above.

14th October 2011 Fulham Palace Art Fair - update

Last weekend saw our first trip to the Fulham Palace Art Fair. It was a great event. The standard of work was very high across all the stands and the setting was excellent. We were in the courtyard of the Medieval palace among artists and galleries from across the UK. We showed work by several of our painters and ceramics by Lincoln Kirby Bell.

If you didn't make it this time I hope you'll be able to go to next year's fair. We'll definitely be going back. If you are slightly further west, our next fair is the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair in November (11th-13th). We have some tickets available for this but are about to send them out - if you are interested in coming please contact us very soon. In the meantime, he's one of Gemma Pearce's paintings we sold in Fulham.

28th September 2011 Fulham Palace Art Fair

Next weekend (6th-9th October) we'll be making our first visit to the Fulham Palace Art Fair. Now in its second year, the fair features work by up to 100 artists and galleries and is held in the beautiful and historic Fulham Palace, on the banks of the Thames. We'll have a selection of recent work by several of our painters, and ceramics by Lincoln Kirby Bell.

We have a very limited number of 2-for-1 tickets remaining. Please contact us if you'd like to receive one. We hope to see you at the fair.

14th September 2011 Summer Show opens

Our Second Annual Summer Show is now open in the hamlet of Trebehor near Land's End. Saturday's Opening was a lot of fun and very well attended - at one point the car park (field) was overflowing. Many of the artists were there too. You can view some photos of the show below and many of the paintings here. We'll be here until Sunday week (25th September) - hope you'll be able to make it.

23rd August 2011 3 Art Fairs

Next month sees our Summer Show in Cornwall. After that, we're hitting the road taking paintings to three art fairs across the country. The Fulham Palace Art Fair is only in its second year but by all accounts last year's event was a great success. It features a mixture of galleries and artists from around the South East. We attended the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair for the first time last year. Held at the Royal Racecourse, it features 70 artists and galleries and is a great event.

After these local events, we head to foreign lands for the first time. Well, Edinburgh at least. Held in the Corn Exchange, the Edinburgh Art Fair is one of the country's largest events. More details of this, and other fairs on our events page. We usually have some free or discounted tickets closer the time. Please contact us to find out more

28th July 2011 2nd Annual Summer Show

We're now getting things ready for our 2nd Summer Show in Cornwall in September. Just as last year, the exhibition will be held in the roughly converted cow-shed in Trebehor, close to Sennen. There will be an opening on the afternoon of Saturday 10th September and the event will run for 2 weeks and 2 days after that. If you are in Cornwall in September you can easily combine a trip to the show with a visit to Sennen, Portcurno, Porthgwarra or Nanjizel.

We'll have work by 10 of our painters as well as ceramics by Lincoln Kirby Bell. Many of the artists will be at the opening. We hope you'll be able to make it too. More details on our events page.

25th June 2011 Praed and Piper

Our two-man show of the work of Michael Praed and John Piper closes today. Many thanks to everyone who attended. Both artists provided us with an excellent selection of their recent work and the full range of their styles. Given their close friendship over nearly 40 years, and the manner in which each of their paintings are so strongly associated with West Cornwall, it was great to at last have an exhibition dedicated solely to their work.

You can view some of the paintings we've had on display here. We still have a limited number of signed copies of their biographies (published to coincide with this show), available here.

25th May 2011 Michael Praed and John Piper biographies

Hot off the press, the new biographies of Michael Praed and John Piper are now available. Published to coincide with our two-man show next month (details of that here) each book describes their painting careers from the early 1960s to the present day, discussing the other artists from the region whose paintings have most influenced their own. Reproductions of the artists' favourite works illustrates the evolution of their painting style over the years.

The books will be available at our exhibition next month. At the Private View John and Michael will be on hand to sign copies of their books. If, however, you can't make that show, you can order a copy via our webstite here.

From the 1960s and 1970s:
to the present day:

18th May 2011 On The Edge opens

Our first exhibition of the year, On The Edge, is now in full swing. We hung the paintings on Monday and we're here at the A&D Gallery until Saturday 21st May. The domestic layout of the gallery lends itself very well to a mixed show and the paintings look great on the walls. Lincoln Kirby Bell's pottery is proving something of a show-stopper in the front window.

We hope you'll be able to visit us here in person. However, if not, you can see a selection of the work on display here.

15th April 2011 On The Edge

After a break of 5 months our first exhibition of the year is now only 5 weeks away. On The Edge will feature work by four artists whose work we've shown before: Ben Catt, Neil Davies, Terry Whybrow and Lincoln Kirby Bell, as well as paintings by Gemma Pearce and Simon Pooley, both well established artists working in Cornwall but new to ELEVEN AND A HALF. We're very much lookng forward to seeing their most recent work.

The exhibition is being held at the A&D Gallery in Marylebone, a new venue to us. Situtated on Chiltern Street, the gallery has a shop front like most exhibition spaces but behind that is laid out very much like the interior of a house, with a couple of rooms with fireplaces connected by short corridors. It makes for an interesting space to hang and will hopefully give visitors an idea of what the paintings might look like on their own walls. The exhibition runs from Tuesday 17th May till Saturday 21st May. There's a Private View on the evening of Thursday 19th. If you're not already on our mailing list and would like an invitation to this, please contact us. If you are on our mailing list the invitation should arrive by the end of next week. We hope to see you there.

30th March 2011 new artist: Simon Pooley

Born in Macclesfield, Simon Pooley has lived in Cornwall for nearly 20 years and has been paintings full time for all of that period. He works from a studio he built himself, near the cove of Lamorna. His strengths of draftmanship and composition were formed in the years he spent working as an architect. However, it is for his use of colour, often in layered and overlappng blocks, that define his paintings.

We are delighted that Simon has agreed to exhibit with us, starting at our May exhibiton, On The Edge, at the A&D Gallery in Marylebone. We'll have several of his most recent paintings at that show. In the meantime here is a personal favourite:

5th March 2011 new artist: Gemma Pearce

We are very pleased that Gemma Pearce has agreed to exhibit her paintings with us. Born in Dorest, Gemma has been living in Mousehole for several years. Her paintings have been taken up by several galleries across the county. She generally paints still lifes, in soft and subtle colours, often with a back-drop of a Cornish landscape or seascape viewed from a window. In this she follows a long and illustrious line of artists associated with the county, from Ben Nicholson to Joan Gillchrest to Brenda King. We'll first be showing Gemma's paintings at our London exhibition in May (for details please see our events page) but in the meantime you can see some early images here and one below.

24th February 2011 Michael Praed biography

At the same time as the biography of John Piper (see below), we're also publishing a book on Michael Praed. It covers a lifetime of painting, from childhood sketches to work completed in January 2011. At school and then at art college Michael was taught by two very well-known artists: Alexander McKenzie and John Tunnard. I spent a very enjoyable time with Michael discussing the influence they have had on his painting style and the processes he adopts. The book has examples of Michael's paintings going back at least 45 years - if you only know his recent work it's fascinating to see the changes in his style over the years. It's about to be sent off to the printers and should be ready in a couple of months. In the meantime, here are a couple of early paintings:

8th February 2011 John Piper biography

Since Christmas we've been working on a book we'll be publishing later in the year - a biography of John Piper. The book describes his 50 year painting career, from early trips to see Patrick Heron paintings at the Penwith Gallery back in the 1960s, to his most recent works. It also discusses the other local artists whose paintings have most influenced John. I've learnt a lot about art in Cornwall while researching for the book. However, the most interesting part for me was trawling through some of John's earlier works and seeing the shifts in his style (several of them dead-ends!) over the years. Below are a couple of examples from the book - the first from the 1970s and the second, which can only be from the 1980s!

The book should be published in the next couple of months. More details on the webste when it's ready.

12th January 2011 New Vincent Wilson paintings

We've just received our first paintings of the New Year: some of Vincent Wilson's recent collages. For our last exhibition Vincent had given us moorland scenes, mainly based on skethes he made on Bodmin moor. The latest paintings are from a series of sea- and beach-scapes and were completed late in 2010, mainly at Talland beach near Polperro. The rock formations suit Vincent's unique aproach to collage extremely well and the paintings are great examples of his work. The full set can be seen here.