Peter Prendergast (27 October 1946 – 14 January 2007) was a Welsh landscape painter. After the death of Sir

Kyffin Williams Sir John Kyffin Williams, (9 May 1918 – 1 September 2006) was a Welsh landscape painter who lived at Pwllfanogl, Llanfairpwll, on the Island of Anglesey. Williams is widely regarded as the defining artist of Wales during the 20th century. Pe ...

in September 2006, he was recognised/known as the leading landscape painter in Wales.

Early years

Prendergast was born in Abertridwr, a mining village in the

Aber Valley Aber Valley is a valley community in Caerphilly county borough, South Wales. It has two main communities, Abertridwr and Senghenydd, which grew around the mining industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Senghenydd has a longer hist ...

near

Caerphilly Caerphilly (, ; cy, Caerffili, ) is a town and community in Wales. It is situated at the southern end of the Rhymney Valley. It is north of Cardiff and northwest of Newport. It is the largest town in Caerphilly County Borough, and lies w ...

in Glamorgan. His father was a Roman Catholic from County Wexford, Ireland who sought work as a coal miner in Maesteg in south Wales after the

1916 Easter Rising The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the a ...

. His older brother (Stewart) and his twin (Paul) attended the local

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary sch ...

, but he was sent to the local

secondary modern A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Schools of this type continue in Northern Ireland, where they are usually ...

, where his art teacher, Gomer Lewis, recognised his artistic talent. With support from the County art adviser, Leslie Moore, he won a County art scholarship to study at the Cardiff School of Art in 1962, despite having no formal academic qualifications. Prendergast moved to the Slade School of Fine Art in 1964, where he studied under Sir William Coldstream, Francis Bacon, and

Euan Uglow Euan Ernest Richard Uglow (10 March 1932 – 31 August 2000) was a British painter. He is best known for his nude and still life paintings, such as ''German Girl'' and ''Skull''. Biography Euan Uglow was born in 1932 in London. As a child, he l ...

. His tutor was Frank Auerbach. He won the Nettleship Prize for Figure Painting in 1967. He met his future wife, Lesley Riding, in his last year at the Slade, and they were married in 1967.

Career

Prendergast taught part-time in a school for one year after leaving the Slade, and then studied for a Master's degree at

Reading University The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

with Terry Frost and Claude Rogers. There, he met fellow student and landscape painter Len Tabner who remained a close friend in later life. He and his wife moved to Bethesda in 1969, a village near Bangor and close to the

Penrhyn Quarry The Penrhyn quarry is a slate quarry located near Bethesda, North Wales. At the end of the nineteenth century it was the world's largest slate quarry; the main pit is nearly long and deep, and it was worked by nearly 3,000 quarrymen. It has ...

. He taught part-time at

Liverpool School of Art The John Lennon Art and Design Building (formerly the Art and Design Academy) in Liverpool, England, houses Liverpool John Moores University's School of Art and Design. The school was formerly located at the Grade II listed Liverpool College of ...

until 1974, then at a local school,

Ysgol Dyffryn Ogwen Ysgol Dyffryn Ogwen ("Ogwen Valley School") is a bilingual secondary school for pupils aged 11 to 19 years. It is situated in Bethesda in the Ogwen valley in Gwynedd, Wales. As of 2022, there were 454 pupils on roll at the school. Some of the bu ...

, and then at

Coleg Menai Coleg Menai (meaning: ''Menai College'') is a further education college located in Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales. The college also has campuses in Parc Menai, Llangefni, Caernarfon and Holyhead. The college provides a range of academic and vocational ...

, but he concentrated more on developing as an artist. He specialised in paintings of the Penrhyn slate quarry, which he described as "the biggest man-made hole in Europe, like Bruegel's Tower of Babel, but in reverse", and of Snowdonia. His early works have an

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

style, almost

Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

. He painted similar views from skyscrapers in Manhattan on a visit to New York City in 1993. Prendergast won prizes at the

National Eisteddfod The National Eisteddfod of Wales ( Welsh: ') is the largest of several eisteddfodau that are held annually, mostly in Wales. Its eight days of competitions and performances are considered the largest music and poetry festival in Europe. Competitor ...

in 1975 and 1977. Examples of his paintings are owned by the Contemporary Art Society of Wales, and the Tate Gallery. For some years his work was shown by Agnew's gallery in London, culminating in a touring exhibition; the foreword to the exhibition catalogue was written by Sister

Wendy Beckett Wendy Mary Beckett (25 February 1930 – 26 December 2018), better known as Sister Wendy, was a British religious sister and art historian who became known internationally during the 1990s when she presented a series of BBC television documenta ...

, who described him as "a superb colourist and a master of form". He was a member of 56 Group Wales from 1982 until his death. A "50th Birthday Exhibition" was held at the

Boundary Gallery Boundary or Boundaries may refer to: * Border, in political geography Entertainment * ''Boundaries'' (2016 film), a 2016 Canadian film * ''Boundaries'' (2018 film), a 2018 American-Canadian road trip film *Boundary (cricket), the edge of the pla ...

in London in 1996, and a retrospective of his works toured galleries in Wales in 2006, including the Welsh Museum of Modern Art at

Machynlleth Machynlleth () is a market town, community and electoral ward in Powys, Wales and within the historic boundaries of Montgomeryshire. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads. At the 2001 Census it had a pop ...

. ''The Painter's Quarry'', a collection of critical essays on his work, was also published in 2006; a television profile with the same title appeared on

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

. After suffering from poor health in 2006, he died suddenly from a heart attack while walking with his wife near his home in

Deiniolen Deiniolen (; ; ) is a village in Gwynedd, Wales, at the foot of Elidir Fawr, in Llanddeiniolen Community. Deiniolen has views over Caernarfon (7 miles away) and on a clear day, Holyhead Mountain and occasionally the Wicklow Mountains in Irel ...

, near

Caernarfon Caernarfon (; ) is a royal town, community and port in Gwynedd, Wales, with a population of 9,852 (with Caeathro). It lies along the A487 road, on the eastern shore of the Menai Strait, opposite the Isle of Anglesey. The city of Bangor is ...

Gwynedd Gwynedd (; ) is a county and preserved county (latter with differing boundaries; includes the Isle of Anglesey) in the north-west of Wales. It shares borders with Powys, Conwy County Borough, Denbighshire, Anglesey over the Menai Strait, and ...

. His wife, and their two sons and two daughters, carry on his exhibitions and legacy today. Following his death he had two major tribute exhibitions at Martin Tinney Gallery, Cardiff (2014) and Oriel Tegfryn, Menai Bridge (2013). In 2013 Richard Cork's biography of the artist, ''The Art of Peter Pendergast'', was published by Lund Humphries, with an introductory essay by Prendergast's old friend, Mike Knowles.

References

External links

*
Martin Tinney Gallery
(recent paintings)
Oriel Tefryn
from Art Cymru
Works
exhibited at the

*Obituary, ''

New Welsh Review ''New Welsh Review'' is a literary magazine published in Wales. Its primary language is English, with brief excerpts of texts indicated in the original Welsh. History Founded in 1988 as successor to ''The Welsh Review'' (1939–1948), ''Dock Leave ...

'', Summer 2007, pp 54–55
Official Peter Prendergast website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prendergast, Peter 1946 births 2007 deaths 20th-century Welsh painters 20th-century Welsh male artists 21st-century Welsh painters 21st-century Welsh male artists Alumni of Cardiff School of Art and Design Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Alumni of the University of Reading Members of the 56 Group Wales Members of The Welsh Group People from Caerphilly Welsh landscape painters Welsh male painters Welsh people of Irish descent