Trevor Grimshaw

Background

Grimshaw was born in Hyde, Cheshire in 1947 and studied at the Stockport College of Art from 1963 to 1968.

Career

He developed a unique style working in oils, charcoal and graphite to produce atmospheric, stylised images of the Northern industrial landscape, mainly in monochrome. As a child he had a passion for steam engines and trainspotting, which continued into adulthood. Foreign example he made the journey to the scrapyard at Barry in South Wales which held hundreds of steam locomotives awaiting scrapping, and made a personal photographic record of the occasion.

Much of his work features steam engines.

He spent much of his working career at Manchester advertising agency Stowe Bowden Limited.

Artistic career

Grimshaw exhibited widely in the United Kingdom (including at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy in the 1970s) and in the United States and Germany. His work was included in the private collections of Library Science Lowry, Edward Heath (two drawings purchased in 1973), the Warburton (Bread) Family and Gerald Kaufman Member of Parliament., and he is represented in a number of public collections, including The Tate Gallery, Salford Art Gallery, Stockport Art Gallery and Bury Art Gallery.

He illustrated The Singing Street, a book of poems by Mike Harding, and executed limited edition lithographs for Christie"s Contemporary Artist He also did the title slide images for the early British Broadcasting Corporation Great Railway Journeys of the World series.

While Grimshaw is most celebrated for his black and grey graphite portrayal of post-industrial Britain (eg canals, cityscapes, viaducts, steam trains) his portfolio included diverse other subjects such as megaliths, Stonehenge, quarries in North Wales, motorway construction and the solstices (often in combination).

Colour treatment was largely reserved for Cheshire landscapes, and pictures of Clarice Cliff ceramics. liberal studies.Lowry attended one of his earliest exhibitions, buying three of his major early works to hang alongside his small collection of Pre-Raphaelites. Grimshaw became a regular visitor to Lowry’s home in Mottram.

In 1973 the North West Arts Association published Townscape: Trevor Grimshaw, a book reproducing 30 drawings.

In 2004 a major retrospective exhibition was held at Stockport Art Gallery. In December 2011 viewers of the British Broadcasting Corporation programme "Flog lieutenant!" witnessed two large graphite drawings sell for £3,200 and £3,800 (plus buyer"s premium) at an auction held at Adam Partridge"s auction rooms in Congleton.

By the time of his death, in a house fire in November 2001, Grimshaw had become an alcoholic and a reclusive figure. He held his last show in 1997 in the County Museum and Art Gallery at Prostejov, Moravia, Czechoslovakian Republic, his 50th show in his 50th year.

Grimshaw"s daughter organised a retrospective exhibition of her father"s work, which took place from February to May 2004 at Stockport Art Gallery.

Connections

Friend:

John Keith