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SUBURBAN LANDSCAPES (1974-80)

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"Grey Barn" 1978 oil on canvas 91x122cm

"Morning Departure" 1977 oil on canvas 91x102cm

"The Island" 1978 oil on canvas 75x91cm


"Winter" 1978 oil on linen 63x76cm

"August" 1975 oil on canvas 91x102cm

"Back Gardens - Light Snow" 1979 oil on linen 51x61cm

‘Suburban Landscapes’ is a series of paintings, drawings and etchings mostly set in and around Shepperton. The series was created at a time of great change in the area and the old rural Middlesex landscape of orchards and market gardens disappeared rapidly. Our village grew. Heathrow grew. Ian recorded the change and would often paint the same vista in summer and winter.

The start of this period coincided with our return from the USA after a year in Wisconsin. Ian continued to make fairly regular trips back to US to give guest lectures. So it is possible that he was influenced by Hopper and Wyeth in use of colour and tones, vast skies and barns, though figures feature only rarely in Ian’s paintings. Ian was certainly influenced by the vastness of the American mid-west and he may have found parallels in the flat landscape of the Thames Valley and the brash confidence of new construction around Shepperton.

Coincidentally, Ian was painting ‘Ballardia’. We lived on the same long road as the author JG Ballard and my parents shared a close mutual friend. Whilst I don’t think there was an exchange of ideas, the two creative minds were open to the environmental processes occurring around them.

The paintings were exhibited at The Oxford Gallery, The Piccadilly Gallery (Cork Street), The Royal Academy and Barclays Bank.


Untitled (Lyme Regis) 1975 etching 40x52cm

Untitled 1973 etching 18x24cm

"August" 1976 etching 53x58cm
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