Forty-five years after Stanley Davison first exhibited his work in Hartlepool, the self-taught painter is back in the town’s art gallery with one of the most shows of his career.
Stanley Davison: A Decade in Paint brings together work made over the past ten years, with Hartlepool’s people, places and history running through the exhibition. It opened in July and remains on show until 10 October.
Davison started painting when was ten and never went through formal art school training. After spending part of his childhood in Dumbarton, he moved to Hartlepool and later worked in the steelworks.
He also spent twelve years framing other people’s pictures at Classic Art on Park Road. Painting continued around the job, fitted into whatever spare time he could find.
His first exhibition was held at Hartlepool’s Gray Art Gallery in 1981. Culture Hartlepool describes the current retrospective as his most substantial show since then.
A separate Culture North East feature on the exhibition describes the recent paintings as an homage to the people, places and history of Hartlepool. That makes this less a conventional career retrospective and more a record of a town seen repeatedly by someone who has spent decades looking closely at it.
The exhibition is currently at Hartlepool Art Gallery and runs until Saturday 10 October. Details are available from Culture Hartlepool. Background on Davison and the exhibition was also checked against Culture North East’s Culture Digest.