Original oil painting titled "My Father Speaks of Arthur" by Nick Moore.
Oil on canvas, 2021.
Signed and framed.
Painting dimensions 800mm x 800mm.
Framed by the artist in simple charcoal grey frame.
The painting is a homage to famous Potteries painter, poet, and playwright Arthur Berry (1925-1994) by Nick Moore. It was painted in January 2021 as part of his lockdown series of paintings.
The painting was inspired after Nick was talking with his father, painter David Moore who was taught life drawing by Arthur, Nick also wrote a poem alongside the portrait of the same name which is below:
My father speaks of Arthur
My father speaks of Arthur
studying a rheumatic pit ghost
with burr-oak knuckles,
cradling a slow-sup ale.
A dying fire,
from gob pile gatherings,
spots resinous char
on ashen, mangy pelt.
No yelp or twitch
from slumbering dog,
its scurfy hide scorched
to fire-thickened felt.
And slag-ash dust
dulled the quarry tiles
of the ruddy hearth
where the artist watched.
Our playwright entertained
with mundane tales,
a glut of rapt creatives,
‘Once Upon a Sunday’.
Sharing glimpses
of his china childhood
where ranks of council terraces
eroded verdant greenway.
Most time idling,
but always gathering
a dry eyeful of pot bank toil,
a dearth of flamboyance.
Encounters round the Potteries
and throwaway probing
elicited little urgency,
“I’m not really a busy man.”
I’ll not pretend to know Mr Berry,
as did ‘The Hippy’ or ‘Eli’.
My father speaks of Arthur, alas, not I.
Nick Moore Jan 2021