GEOFF BUTTERWORTH
Wild Flowers, Rydal
True Grit up North. (Bacup)
Lock 90 Bridgewater Canal (Manchester)
City for a Day
About Geoff Butterworth
I had always wanted to paint and draw when I was at school and music was a partner to this desire. I started Piano lessons when I was seven and progressed with enthusiasm. My schooldays were filled with creativity and when I left I would have gone to art school but I was told that I was not art college material by the Principal at Rochdale, a friend of Lowry.
1968 -1978
I did not see it at the time but he did me a favour, I went into engineering and became an apprentice in a large fabrication works. In my spare time I continued with both my early interests. I produced oil paintings and focussed on motorcycle racing as a subject, my passion for motorcycling took me to the TT races on several occasions. My idea was to photograph the racing at various corners and go back the next year 1975, and hopefully sell my paintings. Three days after returning I was hit by two cars on my way to work on a Friday morning in June. It was nearly the end of September before I arrived home with a badly broken right leg. I was off work for three and a half years. During this long convalescence my passion for art grew and I turned to painting village scenes and also changed from Oil paint to watercolour.
1978 -1980
I decided to focus on my art and to teach myself how to paint using an artist’s calendar my Brother had. The paintings of Rowland Hilder RA grabbed me and I copied three of them. By the time I had finished the third one, I had figured out how to create light and shade and not to paint light over dark like I was doing with oil paints. By 1980 I had my work in a local new furniture shop and I had sold several small paintings so I decided to go self employed as an Artist.
1980 -1994
These are the years of remarkable progress with work in galleries around the country and many art societies welcoming my input in their exhibitions. I started my own one man exhibitions producing around a hundred watercolours a year and promoting myself, I was invited to join the ‘Society of Artists’, and also the ‘Yorkshire Itinerants Society’ invited me to be a member. I became well known in the Print market, setting up a limited company to market Limited Editions of my works supplying many galleries throughout the country. I was elected into the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) sponsored by three other artist members.
1994 - 2008
During all this time my leg injuries were gradually deteriorating and I was faced with a final chance to save it and so I went back into Hospital for three months. This new operation was a great success and I arrived home with a straight leg that almost matched the other for length and no more painkillers.
I started to work again and joined the British watercolour society by putting six watercolours in their Spring- open exhibition. I won First place in the peoples vote, The Mail on Sunday Prize for Best Painting and was instantly elected as a Fellow of the Society. I went on to exhibit in the autumn show and Won top honours again and came away with the societies First Prize, a Windsor and Newton award of a Handmade Kensington Watercolour Box, which was then worth over £600.00.
The following year I won First prize again and was created a full member of the society and made a member of the International Guild of Artists. I worked with the British Watercolour society for a further six years, never being out of the top ten in every show. I finally left after exhausting every prize and award and joined the Birmingham Watercolour Society.
In between all this I won the peoples vote at the Laing Landscape and Seascape Exhibition at London’s Mall gallery and the year after I won a Major prize in the same show. I was now well in the public domain and had my work in over Twenty two galleries around Britain.
From 2010
My involvement with the Birmingham Watercolour society has also won me many awards and I still work with many societies such as the International Watercolour Society and the Global Association of Watercolour Artists (GAWA) My involvement with the Mall Gallery has seen my work in the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour exhibition, winning their Major Prize in 2017, and taking part in their annual Spring Shows in London.
My work has been exhibited and sold in many countries throughout the World.
I consider it a great honour indeed to be a chosen part of this Group of superb Artists.
In Our Exhibition 2018 - "Morning glory, Manchester" Watercolour, 49 cm x 69 cm SOLD
Lobsterpots at Dunure. Ayrshire.
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The Mainwaring Tomb
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A Day like any other.
