Colin Ruffell

pair of vintage Colin Ruffell oil paintings

We bought these two fabulous paintings at auction recently.

They’re interior scenes with a very distinctive style. Our attention was grabbed from across the large saleroom.

The items in these room settings don’t scream 1960s/70s, but the style of painting somehow does.

The artist is Colin Ruffell. Born in 1939, he has been a professional artist for nearly 50 years and has exhibited all over the world.

We love the composition, colour & tones of these works…

…also the textural quality with the bold application of paint.

Don’t you just love the bottle & glass – or the plates on the dresser?

The artist is still working today and we’ve been perusing his website recently. There are originals, prints… books too.

We’re still drawn to his still lives with their naive style, but also love his impressionist depictions of London & Brighton.

Tuesday Huesday: Stanley Spencer’s Shipbuilding

_{Stanley Spencer, Riveters, 1941 | © Imperial War Museum}

Perhaps it was listening the recent BBC Radio 2 programme about one of my favourite songs – Elvis Costello & Clive Langer’s Shipbuilding that reminded me of one of my favourite artists – Stanley Spencer. He created beautiful works often on an epic scale about war, industry and religion.

Click on the image above to see a larger version.

If I’ve whetted your appetite for more there’s a great book entitled Men of the Clyde: Stanley Spencer’s Vision at Port Glasgow available on Amazon

Below is an introduction to it’s restoration and display at Chatham Historic Dockyard in 2010.

Tuesday Huesday: C R W Nevinson

This striking painting from 1914, entitled ‘Returning to the Trenches‘ is by C R W Nevinson, considered one of Britain’s greatest war artists. The image conveys the movement and sound of the marching troops so vividly. I prefer his earlier style of work of which this is my favourite example – much influenced by the Futurist and Vorticist Movements.

You can see a larger selection of his work on the Bridgeman Art, Culture, History website. There’s a very rare book entitled, ‘C.R.W.Nevinson: The Twentieth Century‘ by Richard Ingleby. There are currently only two copies available on Amazon – the cheaper being a mere £260.64!

Bernard Buffet

We’ve been meaning to do a blog post about Bernard Buffet for a long time.

The recent purchase of this vintage poster brought it to mind once again. We had it sent from France and it advertises an exhibition held in 1969 at the Musée d’Unterlinden in Colmar.

It’s just come back from our wonderful local framers, Abacus. We chose burnished gold – reminiscent of an antique religious icon.

It now hangs above our bedroom fireplace. We love it!

We also framed these vinyl album covers that were illustrated by Buffet.

The set – Ella Fitzgerald sings Gershwin – dates from 1959.

Great records and great covers – a perfect combination.

He’s a fabulous artist – so distinctive – and one of our real favourites. Here’s a link to the online Musée Bernard Buffet…

…and here’s a 2-minute, black & white film from 1962 of Buffet and his wife, Annabel in their château and private chapel. We discovered on the British Pathé website – there’s so much beautiful art on the walls!

We’ve set up a Buffet Flickr group – please add your images if you have some or just have a browse!

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: painting

Colin Ruffell

Tuesday Huesday: Stanley Spencer’s Shipbuilding

Tuesday Huesday: C R W Nevinson

Bernard Buffet