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 histo ...

near Caerphilly in Glamorgan. His father was a Roman Catholic from County Wexford, Ireland who sought work as a coal miner in

Maesteg Maesteg is a town and community (Wales), community in Bridgend County Borough, Wales. Maesteg lies at the northernmost end of the Llynfi Valley, close to the border with Neath Port Talbot. In 2011, Maesteg had a population of 20,612. The English ...

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 ...

. 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 school ...

, 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 usuall ...

, 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 The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in 1964, where he studied under

Sir William Coldstream Sir William Menzies Coldstream, CBE (28 February 1908 – 18 February 1987) was an English realist painter and a long-standing art teacher. Biography Coldstream was born at Belford, Northumberland, in northern England, the second son of cou ...

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

, 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 Frank Helmut Auerbach (born 29 April 1931) is a German-British painter. Born in Germany, he has been a naturalised British subject since 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon ...

. 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 A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

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 Sir Terence Ernest Manitou Frost RA (13 October 1915 – 1 September 2003) was a British abstract artist, who worked in Newlyn, Cornwall. Frost was renowned for his use of the Cornish light, colour and shape to start a new art movement in ...

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, 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 vocation ...

, 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 The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...

, but in reverse", and of

Snowdonia Snowdonia or Eryri (), is a mountainous region in northwestern Wales and a national park of in area. It was the first to be designated of the three national parks in Wales, in 1951. Name and extent It was a commonly held belief that the na ...

. 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 rad ...

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 Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

on a visit to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1993. Prendergast won prizes at the National Eisteddfod in 1975 and 1977. Examples of his paintings are owned by the Contemporary Art Society of Wales, and the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

. 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 document ...

, 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 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. After suffering from poor health in 2006, he died suddenly from a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

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 Irelan ...

, 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 ...

in Gwynedd. 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 Richard Cork (born 25 March 1947) is a British art historian, editor, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator. He has been an art critic for the ''Evening Standard'', '' The Listener'', ''The Times'' and the ''New Statesman''. Cork was also ...

'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 Boundary Gallery *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 Leav ...

'', 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