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photo by Bernard Mitchell. PETER PRENDERGAST
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"Bethesda Quarry", 1979/81
oil on board
172x193cm
"Study for Quarry Painting", 1980
ink, chalk & pencil on paper
100x119cm
"Landscape near Bethesda", 1973
oil on board
122x122cm
(artist's collection)
Peter Prendergast was born in 1946 in Abertridwr, near Caerphilly/South Wales; he died on 14th January 2007 at Bethesta. From 1962 to 1964 he studied Fine Art at Cardiff College of Art, and from 1964 to 1967 at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. In 1968/70 he did post-graduate work at Reading University; influence: Frank Auerbach.
"The huge Penrhyn Slate Quarry is entered from Bethesda, and Prendergast became intrigued by the view into its pit from the edge of the man-made cliff. He did not make this the subject of a series of works of equal importance, but made drawings and sketches as studies for larger works, which came to have almost the significance of history paintings. Some sketches were themselves increased in size by strips added around their edges, usually maintaining a square format. The intention remains to work these into a final painting on a grand scale, which summarized the history of the quarry as a record of years of human labour.
In contrast to Bloch's series, executed when the quarries were worked on a different scale, the workmen do not appear in Prendergast's landscape, but a human content is present in the tension in the drawing and in the colours, and in the very evident long history of the execution of the works themselves" (quoted from a Welsh Arts Council catalogue to a touring exhibition in 1981 "The Dark Hills The Heavy clouds").
Awards: numerous ..........................
Commissions: numerous ...........................
International Links:
collections abroad=National Gallery of Czechoslovakia;
exhibitions abroad=1985 "Landscapes from Britain" Perth Arts Festival/Australia; 1990 "Artists in National Parks" Victoria & Albert Museum touring exhib. in USA; 1994 "Artists from Wales" Eleanore Austerer Gallery San Francisco/USA; "Disclosures" Caixa de Terrassa Barcelona/Spain;
