The Painter’s Quarry: The Art of Peter Prendergast

Peter Prendergast is one of most celebrated landscape painters in Britain today, in addition to being a skilled portraitist. He has made his reputation with his atmospheric paintings of North Wales, in particular Snowdonia where he has lived for over twenty years. Influenced by Auerbach, Bomberg and Bonnard his colourful palette and expressionist style has developed since he joined Cardiff Art College a year early and made his way through the Slade and Reading University, and his paintings are in the major British public collections. This book of overlapping essays presents a multifaceted picture of Prendergast’s career, paying due attention to his painting of Wales but also visiting his portraits, self-portraits, seascapes and drawings, for which he is also much acclaimed. Prendergast’s story is also one of a generation of talented working class people whose lives happily coincided with experiments in social engineering in higher education which produced writers, artists and filmakers like Melvyn Bragg and Dennis Potter. The resulting book is a fascinating exploration of changes in art history and of a bold and accomplished artist.