Barewall : Arthur Berry 100

Its now 2025 and its the centenary celebration year of artist, poet, playwright and broadcaster Potteries man of the ordinary people Arthur Berry.

If you didn't know Arthur then his film recordings offer a fantastic opportunity to understand the man; what he wanted you to discover, what he saw and how he felt. A true expressionist who revelled in the subject like a pig in a home-sty.

He really is one of the most completely creative beings produced by the Potteries and who grew up with the young city of Stoke on Trent, in-particular he was drawn to Burslem, born in Feb 7 1925 just before the city was given its city status. It was a rich time to hear about the 6 towns and lament their loss of status at the time, but the chimneys were belching and everyday people were probably too busy digging coal, laying bricks, firing pots, making lobby and enjoying the rich wealth from around the world that was coming into the towns at the time. The new Art school was only just past 10 years old and the Queens Theatre was only just built. Burslem would have felt like a place to be, a Metropolis to his Smallthorne upbringing. he became very much a man who had "one leg in the Moorlands and one in the Pots". A unique character like no other who brought the city with him, and so does his legacy, even today we can taste the Potteries in his work, if you step into Arthur's world you will get to this area, into its underbelly and come out with a strong sense of place, a place that is not forgotten and lives fiercely.

Here is a a collection of recordings for you to watch about Arthur Berry. To follow what is happening throughout 2025 and Arthur Berry 100 check out the website arthurberry100.co.uk and for the City of Stoke on Trent 100 celebration checkout sot100.org.uk

Barewall are honoured to be working with the estate of Arthur Berry since 2012. If you would like to own a piece of art by Arthur Berry while still available please do contact the gallery or visit one of the exhibitions taking place this year.

Berry on FILM - Clips Collection available online:

Artists on Film a BBC commissioned series running from 1988 which features British artists of the 20th century. This Arthur Berry film from 1977 by Philip Donollan featured alongside films on artists Anthony Green RA, Robert Bates and Helen Bradley. The series featured famous and lesser known artists but all were selected and were "concerned in the idea of looking" It is clear that Arthur Berry is a standout artist in this feature of some of the greatest of British artists of the time.

Episode 1: Introduction, Augustus John, Henry Moore, L.S. Lowry

Episode 2: Barbara Hepworth, Francis Bacon, Elizabeth Frink

Episode 3: Anthony Green, Robert Bates, Helen Bradley, Arthur Berry

Episode 4: Edward Bawden, Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland and Norman Cornish

Episode 5: William Hayter, John Hoyland, Patrick Heron, Anthony Caro, Victor Pasmore.

In 2016 an Arthur Berry painting Unemployables was featured on the infamous Sunday evening stable Antiques Road Show when it came to Trentham Gardens in Stoke on Trent. We found this clip kindly put onto YouTube by Anthony Cosgrove art collector and creator of the very popular Northern Art Facebook page. The estimation of course is vastly under its today value. Today we would anticipate this painting given its subject a large detailed rare multi figure painting in mixed media by Arthur Berry and it would be for sale in the gallery for 3K to 4.5K upwards. Enjoy the clip with an appraisal by the roadshow's Dendy Eastman fine art consultant at Bonhams and Romy Cheeseman.

Berry Influences

Jean Dubuffet - a curator tour of A Brutal Beauty at the Barbican, London Aug 2021 founder of term Art Brut. Check out the drawings, portraits and experimentation with materials and compare Berry's How to Paint a Picture of Nile Street poem. Dubuffet went on to live a long life compared to Berry's 69 years producing for Venice Biennial in 1985. His large scale exciting works which inspired urban art of the 80s by artists like Jean Paul Basquiat and Keith Haring.

COBRA Artist Movement

Post WWII Art movement which focused on the instinctive primitive art idea made by children and as a reaction to the sterile direction of abstract art, by a group of artists based in three European centres Belgium, Holland and Denmark, usings its city centres as its name, Copenhagan, Brussells and Amsterdam (Cobra). A short lived movement from 1948 to 1951, with a couple of major exhibitions in Europe. However the concept to make this kind of art after the oppression of artists by the German occupation and the persecution of artists as degenerative provided a valve release to the artists concerned.

The founding artists included Karel Appel, Asger Jorn and Constant Nieuwenhuys (a.k.a. Constant) and Ernest Mancoba.

TO learn more about the Cobra movement please check out this film as well as a link about the collection in the Tate Collection. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/cobra

Arthur Berry's own particular take on Dubuffet's and Cobra Art movements includes a heavy dose of working class culture, British Northern working class culture particularly of the Potteries and North Staffordshire as he saw it. His disability, a withered right arm and his struggles with Agraphobia and depression and self doubting stopped him from taking on many of the opportunities that came his way, like the offer to be go to Hollywood to be artist in residence on the British Film director and Berry collector; Adrian Lynne's film 9.5 Weeks which came out in 1985. Berry is credited at the end of the film as an inspiration for the art included in the film, one of the main characters played by Kim Basinger works in a gallery, plus the visual feel is one of dark emotional scenes and settings and heavy sexual tension between two lovers which lasts for 9.5 weeks. The tension expressed deals with human conditions, obsession, pain, cruelty and desire, excitement and so on. The director contacted Berry after seeing a film of the artist probably the one made in 1977 when interviewed by Philip Donollan.

If you would like to know more about Arthur Berry please do follow the centenary celebration via arthurberry100.co.uk.

Amanda Bromley

Director of Barewall Art Gallery

January 2025