Penrose Antiques

Description

We have for sale a lovely watercolour painting by the well respected Yorkshir artist Joseph Pighills entitled "Old Changegate, Haworth"

This very attractive watercolour painting of the Yorkshire town Haworth, famed for its association with the Bronte sisters depicts Haworth from Changegate just before the junction with the Main Street looking towards the sweet shop and the Church. The painting is signed to the bottom middle right by the artist and dated 1983, the year before he died.

The reverse of the painting carries the title Old Changegate Haworth written in pencil along with the artists name. The back of the painting also carries a label for J.A.D & B. Morton, The Stables Gallery, Trawden, Colne, Lancashire.

The painting is 10 inches (25.4cm) high and 14.5 inches (36.8cm) wide excluding the frame. Both the picture and the frame are in a very good to excellent condition, although the tape to the back of the picture has been renewed.

About the Artist
The artist and printmaker Joseph Pighills was born and lived near Keighley in Oxenhope. He worked as a pattern engineer until retirement at 63 when he took up painting in earnest. He studied at evening classes at the Keighley School of Art and painted local scenes of the moor around Oxenhope and the village of Haworth. His first exhibition was held at Cliffe Castle in 1961 and he exhibited again at the Lane Gallery in Bradford in 1963. This brought his work to the attention of an appreciative audience and resulted in his work being exhibited at the Goosewell Gallery Menston and in numerouse other locations. Following his death in 1984, Bradford Museums and Galleries commemorated his work by way of an exhibition in 1985. His style very much reflected the climate in Haworth, and in 1974 when asked by a journalist why he never painted clear skies he replied:-

“Look at today. Clouds is doing nothing. It’s mostly them times when it’s going to rain or it’s just given up raining ‘at you want to paint our theer. I paint off mi feelings and say summat about what’s going on – more about what’s going on nor about t’subject itself. When it’s really grand weather, what you might call fit for painting, you get out there and t’subject has flown.”

His works can be found in a number of art galleries and museums, including Leeds City Art Gallery, Cliffe Castle, Keighley, Cartwright Hall, Bradford, and at Sewerby Hall Museum and Gallery, near Bridlington. He was also commissioned to paint the illustrations of the book Over Andes and Amazon: A schoolmaster’s summer holiday’ by Alan Hadfield with illustrations by Joseph Pighills. Published by Northern Lights Press: Harrogate, 1964.