The Ray Barry Studio Sale and Christmas Timed Art Sale
17th December - 5th January
Ray Barry loved Cornwall and he loved art.
From 2010 he was a director of the St Ives Society of Artists, and an associate of both the Newlyn and Penwith Society of Artists.
Ray originally started painting in the 1950s whilst working for Cable and Wireless in the Sudan. He exhibited at the Red Sea Club, Port Sudan and The New Stanley Gallery in Nairobi as he began to hone his artistic talent.
After his time in the Sudan Ray settled in Cornwall.
Although by the 1990s Ray was an established artist locally, he took a Fine Art Degree at Falmouth School of Art and graduated in 1997. His studio was in St Ives, then he later moved to Ludgvan near Penzance. He had solo exhibitions at Falmouth Arts Club, the Penzance Arts Club, The Crypt Gallery St Ives,
The Cornerstone Gallery St Ives, Bakehouse Gallery St Ives, as well as jointly exhibiting with fellow artists Jenny Woodhouse, Bob Devereux, Rachel Kantaris, Patricia Dearden, Stephen Dove, John Beer and Victor Bramley.
He was an established fellow artist amongst his peers; a hand written invite to Bryan Pearce’s 75th birthday lay amongst his treasured possessions.
Ray Barry constantly strove to explore colour and textural values with passion,
working primarily in oils and acrylics. Of his work, he quoted:
“I enjoy creating order out of chaos and conversely 'deconstructing' order to the point of meaningful abstraction….
I paint with a sense of adventure rather than premeditation…I love the poetics of Abstraction”.
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Away from his career as an artist, Ray was also a keen stamp collector. His talent and interests overlapped when he created, established and designed stamps for Gugh Island, Isles of Scilly. These were more representational in design and we recently sold a collection of Ray's stamps in our
July Stamps and Collectors auction.
Amongst a total of 422 lots, we have 109 works by Ray Barry in this, our last Timed Art Sale of 2024.
There is a fantastic selection of other works by a wonderful array of artists, so please have a thorough browse of the catalogue.
We have a particularly exciting collection of dramatic, large scale paintings from the Porthleven artist Carole McDowall.
Carole McDowall studied printmaking and sculpture at Putney Art School from 1973-1978, during which time she had work chosen to exhibit at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, 1975, and later she gained a Fine Art Degree in Painting from the Sir John Cass School of Art in the mid-1980's. She was a part of a group of artist based in and around Porthleven in the late 1980's. At this time, Porthleven had become quite a centre for artists. The Acme studios provided 6 large studios some of which were subdivided and shared, with Jeremy Annear amongst the painters to take a studio there, with Bryan Ingham also moving to a studio at this time.
The OYOYOY dinner party almost became an institution amongst Porthleven artists in the late eighties. It usually took place with about eight or ten artists in a first floor flat in Penair House overlooking the mouth of the harbour (which incidentally was rented to the artists by Daphne McClure) or at John and Carole McDowall’s home. The evenings consisted of a really good meal, lots of Bulgarian red wine and intense art discussion usually winding up just before dawn! These discussions were passionate, heated and noisy and on these occasions one of the artists was appointed to chair. There were many creative spin-offs from these evenings. One of the consequences of these evenings was the formation of the Cobalt Group, which formed around 1989 to challenge and question the given work processes of its members in daylong workshops at the Acme Studios in Porthleven. The members of the group were Carole McDowall, Ralph Freeman, Roy Walker, Russ Hedges, and Jeremy Annear.
Carole and her associates have been referred to as third-generation Cornish Modernists, began by Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth and following on from the likes of Peter Lanyon and Terry Frost. Other artists referred to in this third generation include Anthony Frost, Micheal Finn, Tony O’Malley, Jeremy LeGrice, Daphne McClure, Jeremy Annear, Russ Hedges, Ralph Freeman Steve Dove, Roy Ray, John Clark, Clive Blackmore, Simon Averill, Roy Walker, Bob Devereux, John Emmanuel, Bob Crossley and Andrew Lanyon.
The sale is now live and will start closing at 4pm on January 5th 2025.
Click here to view the entire sale
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