City Museum and Art Gallery gets an early Christmas present

Christmas has come early for Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery thanks to artist David Whittaker who, with the support of his gallery in St Ives, has donated a painting to the permanent art collection.

‘ThF’ was recently featured in the Museum’s major autumn/winter exhibition ‘Artists Make Faces’, which featured work by more than 50 different artists who use the face as a canvas or vehicle for expression.

Whittaker is a self-taught painter and sculptor from Cornwall. He became a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists in 2009 and won first prize at the National Open Art Competition in 2011.

Whittaker is known for his large-scale expressive paintings, which feature human heads but with the faces substituted for highly detailed landscapes. He has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad and has work in a number of private collections. Whittaker is represented in the South West by the Millennium Gallery, St Ives.

“This is a really generous gesture of David’s and we’re really pleased to be able to add his work to our collection,” said Curator – Fine Art, Emma Philip. “Artists Make Faces was a major exhibition for us so to be able to retain a legacy from it is very important.

“Our connection to the Newlyn Society of Artists also goes back a long way. We are well-known for the historical paintings we hold in our collection by 19th and 20th century artists such as Stanhope Forbes, Norman Garstin, Walter Langley and Harold Harvey. To be able to add something so current and contemporary ensures that the collection will be truly representative of how painting in the region has developed during the intervening years.”

Having recently been displayed in the Artists Make Faces exhibition, The Year List (Bassaleg Viaduct, River Ebbw, Redstart) will be out on display again from late 2014 in an exhibition of portraits from the permanent collection that the Museum and Art Gallery’s curators are currently developing.