Black and White Relief | Wood and Paint | 1983 | 92 x 98 cms | Private Collection
"Derwent Wise was a maker. He was not concerned with image or fame but with the physical making of art.”
JOHN MILNER, ART HISTORIAN
Derwent in gallery with sculpture
Towards Simonside Northumberland | Acrylic on Paper | 1986 | 37 x 71 cms | Private Collection
"I have been fortunate in having been able to have two careers in my practice as an artist, initially as a sculptor and then, later, as a painter.”
DERWENT WISE
White Sculpture | 1966 | foreground with Amphibian | 1978 | back left and Positive Negative | 1975 | back right Retrospective Exhibition The Hatton Gallery 2006-7
“At the heart of his work lies a continuing engagement with those aspects of the visual world which excite him: nature, landscape, machines, architecture.”
ANDREW BURTON, THE HATTON GALLERY
Alnwick Castle | Acrylic | 1989 | The Hatton Gallery
“... his sense of curiosity and investigation into what he sees has led him to work in drawing, sculpture, relief and painting… a vibrant dialogue which emphasizes the diversity of creative activity.”
ANDREW BURTON, THE HATTON GALLERY
“I worked across the two disciplines, primarily in the making of reliefs, where painting was ancillary to sculpture, but, at best, indivisible from it.”
DERWENT WISE
Tailpiece | Painted Wood and Fibreglass | 1969 | 93 x 110 cms | Private Collection
“He sees the medium of relief sculpture as the middle ground between painting and sculpture.”
ANDREW BURTON, THE HATTON GALLERY
Anatomy of an Interior (Triptych) | Acrylic on Board | 1987 | 38 x 25 cms each panel | Private Collection
“ … the restricting conventions of sculpture … were inhibiting my responses to nature in other ways than the merely formal, particularly the sense of place and atmosphere and mood.”
DERWENT WISE
“… division of space, rhythm and colour are equally apparent … By rotating the painting Interior and Garden, Low Fell (1982) by 90 degrees, the comparison between his sculptural reliefs and painting is striking.”
ANDREW BURTON, THE HATTON GALLERY
“… he became increasingly aware of the difference between the use of colour in the reliefs and in painting and found that painting allowed him to convey a greater emotional depth.”
ANDREW BURTON, THE HATTON GALLERY
Crummock Water Cumberland | Acrylic on Paper | 17 x 38 cms | Private Collection
“ … my work was becoming increasingly concerned with the use of colour … particularly in its relationship to form … to study colour in the context of straightforward objective painting from nature.”
DERWENT WISE
Holy Island from Fenham-le-Moor | Acrylic on Paper | 1990 | 34 x 78 cms | Private Collection
“Close inspection reveals structures of intricate complexity in the juxtapositions of walls, roofs, gates and sheds that Derwent had studied like minute plans for relief sculptures.”
JOHN MILNER, ART HISTORIAN
Winter Landscape Gateshead Fell | Acrylic on Paper | 1987 | 50 x 60 cms | Private Collection
“Since about 1980 I have worked exclusively as a professional, exhibiting painter.”
DERWENT WISE
“These are certainly a sculptor’s paintings …. He loved the well made dry stone wall, the shapes of a yard, the relation of a tree to the wind, rock and soil.”
JOHN MILNER, ART HISTORIAN
Ennerdale Cumbria | Acrylic on Paper | 1994 | Private Collection (Image courtesy of The National Trust)
In the Lammermuirs | Acrylic on paper | 2000 | 25 x 60 cms | Private Collection
Muggleswick Common County Durham | Acrylic on Paper | 1991 | 31 x 61 cms | Private Collection
North Shore Holy Island | Acrylic on Paper | 1999 | 36 x 85 cms | Private Collection
Solway Low Tide at Maryport | Acrylic on Paper | 2002 | 24 x 90 cms | Private Collection
“I am, in a sense, self taught, but have always worked closely with painters … such as Ian Stephenson and Richard Hamilton. I was particularly helped by the interest of the late Kenneth Rowntree and Norman Adams.”
DERWENT WISE
Derwent Wise was an artist - a sculptor and a painter. He is highly regarded for his abstract sculpture, reliefs and landscape paintings, especially the northern landscapes of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and The Lake District.
