Lot 144 - Peter Messer - The Devil's Thoughts
Egg Tempera on Gesso
2022
A6 (15x10cm) Original Artwork
Signed on Verso
ARTIST INFO
About
Peter Messer's paintings are mostly on a domestic scale, resolutely figurative and, by implication, narrative. He paints in the historic medium of egg tempera which he prepares in the studio using egg yolk and raw pigment. The resulting paintings tend to be intense and meticulous, with a flat, arrested, deadpan quality. Often they contain wry or unsettling elements and, although the painter emphatically rejects the epithet ‘quirky’, it is still frequently applied. Many, though not all, draw on the fabric of Peter Messer’s home town of Lewes, Sussex.
Born in 1954, Peter Messer studied Fine Art at the University of Brighton and has paintings in collections in Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Sweden and the US, as well as the UK. In 2007 he published “On the Way to Work. The Lewes Paintings of Peter Messer” and, in 2021 “A Thin Place In Lewes”.
Education
Studied Fine Art at the University of Brighton
Select Exhibitions/Awards
His work has been often exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the New English Art Club and he has been a finalist in the Hunting, Garrick Milne, Lyn Painter-Stainers and Singer and Friedlander Prize exhibitions. In 1998 he won the Sotheby's -sponsored Chichester Art Prize and in 2000 was commissioned to provide twelve paintings for the Sussex Book of Revelations, an Arts Council Millennium Project which toured Sussex libraries. In 2004 he completed a commission for the House of Lords.
Gallery Representation
The Star Brewery Gallery, Lewes
Statement about AOAP Submitted Artwork
A small tempera painting, the title derived from a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
You must not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any works. In doing so, you endanger our relationships with artists, and directly jeopardise the charitable work we do. Anyone found doing so will be subject to legal action.
PLEASE DO NOT BID ON ARTWORK IN OUR ART ON A POSTCARD AUCTIONS IF YOU INTEND ON SELLING THE ARTWORK AFTER YOU HAVE PURCHASED IT. THIS AUCTION HAS BEEN ORGANISED FOR CHARITY AND ALL ARTWORKS HAVE BEEN GENEROUSLY DONATED BY THE ARTISTS TO RAISE MONEY FOR THE HEPATITIS C TRUST. WHEN THE WORK PRODUCED FOR THE CHARITY IS SOLD ON THE SECONDARY MARKET IT DAMAGES OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ARTIST AND PREVENTS US FROM FUNDRAISING.