John Peace Paintings
Following the postponement of last year’s planned exhibition of John’s work at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, we are very pleased to announce that the exhibition will now open on October 30th 2021 & run until May 7th 2022. Over the coming months we’ll give more details & some sneak previews of some of the paintings that will be on show. We really hope you can visit !
“A Frosty Morning” Oil on board 2010 Private Collection
……..with very best wishes for lovely, restful time and a healthy 2021 !
“Colliery Engines in the Snow.” Oil on board 1962. Collection Durham Council
Click on the PRINT SHOP tab above to see prints available for purchase. Original works rarely come onto the market so selling prints is a way of being able to get John’s work more widely known & enjoyed. Profits will go towards costs incurred in protecting & promoting his substantial body of work. If there’s a painting anywhere on the website that you’d like as a print, if we have a high resolution image we’re happy to do special orders. Special orders & PRINT SHOP prices are the same. E : info@johnpeacepaintings.co.uk
John painted the oil below, “Druridge Bay, Northumberland”, in 1979. The bay is a stretch of glorious sandy beach that runs from Cresswell to Amble on the North East coast. John painted here extensively and as a family - like so many others - we have very happy memories of days messing around on the beach or in the rock pools and in the sea. The painting is one of 146 re-discovered since John died and we’ve now got names of an additional 384 paintings to find. As always it’d be great to hear from anyone who could help.
The painting below by John is of a fish & chip shop in Blaydon that was demolished, along with most of the rest of the area, in the early 1970s. Thanks to the Lemington Facebook Past & Present Group & the Winlaton History Society we now have photos of Eric’s Cafe. It had been part of a terrace of shops (hence the joist sticking out from one side) near the Blaydon railway crossing on Tyne Street & Robinson Street. Apparently the cafe was the last building in the street to be demolished. One photo shows a still from the film of The Likely Lads in which Terry & Bob visit a demolition site where their favourite pub used to stand. Another photo is a lovely one of the women who used to work there. John’s painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2009.
John’s work rarely comes up for sale now and as prints are a way of making his work more widely accessible we are planning on selling some later this year. Any profit we make will go towards protecting & promoting his work.
The painting below, “Summer Evening, Holy Island”, was painted in 1998 and is held within a private collection.
During lockdown we’ve discovered titles of 297 paintings that are still “missing” to us as a family. We’d be so grateful for details of any works for the back catalogue we’re planning. Measurements, photos & the medium of a work is the information we’d love to have from current owners.
The photo below, from a newspaper article, shows John in his studio in Lemington in the 1960s. On the easel is a painting called “The Ninth of June, 1962” & this photo is the only visual record we have of it. It shows crowds on Scotswood Bridge celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Blaydon Races. It’d be wonderful to track down this painting before the 160th anniversary in 2022.
Please email info@johnpeacepaintings.co.uk if you can help in any way - we’d love to hear from you !
This stunning painting was commissioned & painted in 2002. It’s rare in that it shows a whole cricket field & match in progress. The game was being played at Durham in the shadow of Lumley Castle. Note the social distancing! It is held in a private collection & we spent a lovely afternoon with the nephew of the current owner who brought the painting to Lemington last year so that we could photograph it & record the details for the back catalogue.
Since February this year several people have been in touch to let us know of work painted by John that they now own. It’s always really exciting to hear news like this & to see photos or - if we’re very lucky & not in lockdown - the originals. We have details now of 118 paintings that just eighteen months ago we hadn’t even known existed. We know from all sorts of sources of information - word of mouth, newspaper articles, bills of sale, exhibition catalogues, photographs & letters for example - that there are many more to find & we’d love to hear from anyone who can help.
Untitled - A Sea-Coaler’s horse and cart on the North-East coast. @1970’s. Signed. Private collection
The Museum & Art Gallery is closed until at least 1st May 2020 so the planned exhibition there of John’s work will now take place sometime in Spring 2021. In the meantime, check out the Museum’s website for digital resources so that you can still enjoy their wonderful collections from the safety of your own home.
Below is an oil painting by John, painted in 1972 called “The Herd Groyne Lighthouse”, a South Shields local landmark. It is held in a private collection.
All we have of the gorgeous painting below are digital images saved by the trusted printer that John worked with for many years. The painting shows a beach scene at Tynemouth and was painted in the early 1970s. John’s wife and three of his daughters are in the foreground.
The painting shown here is called “Little Steamer on the Wear” & was painted by John in oils on board in 1971. It was sold through the Bondgate Gallery in Alnwick & is one of six bought by the same collector who got in touch recently to let us know about the works she owns. It was so exciting to see them & we’re indebted to her & to others who’ve been in touch with details of the works they own.
This oil painting is of John’s wife RoseMary trying to get warm in front of a Godin stove. They were staying with family in Beautheil in Northern France over Christmas 1991 in an old cafe which was freezing cold! This is another painting which we’ve lost track of & would love to have an up to date record of as part of the information we’re gathering for the catalogue raisonne.
If you can help please email info@johnpeacepaintings.co.uk Thank you!
Can you help us to find the lucky owner of this lovely painting? It is called “Lemington Pit-Houses” & was painted in oils on board in 1969.
John's family is currently working with South Shields Museum & Art Gallery to mount the first exhibition, since his death in 2017, of a selection of his work. The exhibition is due to open in October 2020 & to run for a period of around six months.
We would love to hear from anyone who has any information relating to John’s work. We are planning a Catalogue Raisonné to record his extensive output. In the last year we have discovered the whereabouts of 98 works that we had no previous knowledge of. We do know of many other paintings - through bills of sale, old exhibition catalogues, photographs, reviews, newspaper articles and the like - that we would love to be able to track down. Hopefully they are safe & owned by collectors who are still thoroughly enjoying them ! If you can help, please email us on info@johnpeacepaintings.co.uk
