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It's now well into March, and Gallery 9 has been on the radio! Saturday 14 March found us on The Culture Club at Cotswolds Radio talking about our gallery plans for April ... think lithographs, Tate Britain and birds in art ...
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It has to be admitted: it was a struggle! Live on a Saturday morning, before enough caffeine had hit the veins, and with eight minutes, more or less, in which to meaningfully describe an artist's life's work and its progression up to the present day, this only-just begun but strangely unsettling 2026!
How to describe it ..?
... let's start with the Seventies, a time of burgeoning flair and creativity for those artists moving from their politically unsullied education in the art schools of the Sixties ...
... and The Curwen Press, tirelessly enabling the vision of artists to be translated from original painting to high-quality colour lithograph. ​
It's 1973 and Don Cordery is invited by the newly-established Christie's Contemporary Art to produce a series of lithographs of birds of prey. These are to be made and printed at The Curwen Press and released for sale by Christie's in limited editions of 150 or 200.
The lithographs are sell-outs. And following the formation of an archive of contemporary prints by the Tate in 1977, The Curwen Press donates one of each of these lithographs to the archive.
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Moving forward to the early 1980s. Don encounters, through his illustrator friend Tony Meeuwissen, the artists' agency, Folio. Through Folio, Don is commissioned, in 1989, to produce the designs for the postage stamps commemorating the centenary of The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). This edition is, at the time, the eighth most popular in the history of the Royal Mail.
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In 1995, Don's finely-wrought watercolour paintings of golden eagles and their habitat are seen around London, made huge to fill massive hoardings. Eagle Star, the insurance giant, are pushing their home insurance policies and are entranced by Don's ability to render the fierceness of talon, beak and feather in the subtle and soft stippling technique he's become known for.
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Move on through the nineties, a time unimaginable to some young 'uns today, when the advent of digital technology is just starting to make itself felt in the rarefied world of fine art. The world of Illustration has been, thus far, one of manual dexterity and skill. Artists are thereafter required to adapt, and for many this is no bad thing.
​​​​​​So, looking back, we see that the world was changing, irrevocably and in unfathomable ways. And some illustrators, like Tony Meeuwissen, possessing no devices and wanting no access to the digital world, continued to load their fine sable brushes with gouache and watercolour.
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But Meeuwissen's skills were called upon less and less. And he was getting older. He is both old-school and old in years. Where will we be ten, fifteen, years hence when he is no longer here to remind us of what has ostensibly been lost?
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​​​​​​​​​​​​Don himself left the world of illustration in the late 1990s to go back to the creative expression and experimentation that had started during his days at the Royal Academy Schools and which had led to recognition, both at The Young Contemporaries exhibition at The Whitechapel Gallery in 1966 and an award in The John Moores Prize.
His portfolio (above) reflects this willingness to re-explore abstraction, not to speak of the nuances of portraiture, still life and landscape, and his acute ability to work in many different media. This latter work is more suggestive of reality than 'realistic'.
Don has been working in his studio behind Gallery 9 since 2014, opening the gallery in 2019 to show his, and his photographer wife Cheryl's, work.
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In the meantime, in 2024, Tim Batchelor, Assistant Curator at Tate Britain, wrote a lavishly illustrated book entitled 'Birds in Art'. This was based on The Tate's extensive collection of bird paintings and prints. Not long afterwards Tate Britain opened a show of selected works from the many that illustrate the book. Two of Don's lithographs, 'Spectacled Owl' and 'Goshawk', are there, shining and vivid. They hang opposite works by, among others, Elisabeth Frink, Ceri Richards and Cedric Morris.
The show at Tate Britain closes in mid-June 2026. Before it does, we are going to walk alongside them with a show of our own. A retrospective, if you will. We will be showing studies from Don's time in bird illustration, with particular focus on the RSPB stamps and the Eagle Star project. There will be on show original paintings, commissioned by lovers of birds and bird art.
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Above all, though, we will be showing various aspects of the lithographic process, with the original 'Spectacled Owl' and 'Goshawk' on central display. We will aim to get the thing open by the second week of April. If not, the third ... Watch this space!
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We hope to see you then!
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