Life in the shadows: Peter Brannan’s dark places

Thank you to Dr Malcolm Moyes, who has sent us a second excerpt from his book on the Cleethorpes born artist Peter Brannan.

In July 2016, over twenty paintings by Peter Brannan, ranging from the late 1960’s through to the 1980’s, went under the hammer: they were the property of the late Euan Robertson, of Leasingham Manor, near Sleaford, and were sold by Golding, Young and Mawer, as part of an impressive two day Marquee Sale of art and antiques. With the exception of just two works, all the paintings were sold, sometimes for a good deal more than their estimate; the two unsold works were subsequently offered by the same auction house the following month at their Lincoln Fine Art Sale, and both were sold. It was the biggest ever dispersal of Peter Brannan’s work from a private collection and gave an opportunity for his many admirers to view a range of his paintings, some of which had not been seen in public for over forty years.

Inevitably perhaps, the collection was dominated by paintings which depicted figures on the beach and a variety of coastal scenes. There were also works relating to specific localities beyond his home town of Cleethorpes, mainly of Newark, where Brannan spent most of his working life as a teacher.

Two of the paintings from the Robertson collection are of particular interest, in that they represent a stylistic quirk apparent neither in the images published in the sale catalogue nor in subsequent reproductions of those images on various Internet sites: these are Caravans (1967) and Brick Pit (1978).

An important part of the Peter Brannan corpus is his focus upon industrial scenes, both in urban and rural contexts. This aspect of his work has received little attention, possibly because the paintings do not have the immediate popular appeal of the more picturesque seaside scenes.

Brick Pit, probably acquired by Robertson from Brannan’s One Man Exhibition at the Usher Gallery in 1978, is an example of the artist’s interest in industrial scenes. The first impression of the painting is that it could be categorised as a topographical painting, a bit of nostalgia for a lost industrial past even, which had its roots firmly in the Lincolnshire soil, or more precisely, in the Lincolnshire clay.

During the C19th and early C20th there was an energetic and thriving brick industry in and around Lincoln, as well as in many of the small villages of the county where individual enterprise and hard work contributed to a thriving local economy, until forced, inevitably, into closure, by more efficient mass production.

However, the work is not in any way a pleasant topographical excursion: on the contrary, it exudes an intense, haunting and oppressive atmosphere of desolation and discomfort when viewed closely and in detail: very closely, as it turns out.

The painting is a large one measuring 60cm by 78cm and its imposing size contributes to the impact of what Brannan has painted. The sky is typically, at this period, a dirty ivory white which hangs over the scene for more than half of the board. Beneath, Brannan has constructed an architectural block of domestic houses to the right of which there is a large kiln with four tall chimneys. To the left of the dwellings, there is a suggestion of a large mass of foliage, although in keeping with the dominant dark tones of the scene beneath the sky, it is created using browns and muted greens. In the foreground is the brick pit, in the shadow of the chimneys, surrounded by a chaotic scene of what appear to be large blocks of wood and possibly clay, dumped at the edge of the pond. The sense of neglect and decay, as opposed to purposeful and vigorous activity, is emphasised by the interspersing of dead looking plants and broken fencing amongst the debris.

In front of the large white house, but hemmed in on three sides by smaller brown buildings are two tiny figures seemingly in conversation. One of the figures appears to have the stance of having his hands in his pockets, whilst the other, next to him, remains a shadowy figure with very little definition. The placing of the figures in such a position in the overall composition, so that they are almost invisible, would seem to be a deliberate construct: especially when the same device is used in other paintings which are equally sombre, equally oppressive. It is as if the human figures have been completely absorbed into the landscape in which they live: so much so that they barely exist. The overall impression is one of inactivity: there is no smoke coming from the kiln’s chimneys, work around the brick pit seems to have slipped into a disarray of neglect and the human figures stand still, remote, in detached conversation. The only movement in the painting is signalled by the banal image of washing hanging out to dry in the wind, a motif used by Brannan in the equally desolate Caravans, painted eleven years earlier.

The completion of Caravans (pictured right) in 1967 was in the midst of the rapidly expanding caravan holiday culture along the East Coast, documented by Alan Dowling in his excellent

2008 book on the growth and development of Cleethorpes. The painting was accepted by the Lincolnshire Artists’ Society, as part of its 61st Annual Exhibition in 1967, along with The Abbey and the ubiquitous Street Scene. It clearly did not sell on its debut, surfacing in the Royal Society of British Artists’ Summer Exhibition of 1968, and then again in 1978 in Brannan’s One Man Exhibition, eventually being bought by Euan Robertson as part of his large-scale haul of paintings from that particular event.Its lack of success first and even second time round comes as no surprise, for it neither celebrates holidays nor evokes nostalgic moments of caravan fun, despite the promise of its title. The image which Peter Brannan serves up for our consumption is one of unremitting drabness: a dull brown world of the shabby and the uninviting, in which the image of the caravan has all the charm of a shanty town down on its luck.

The limited brown palette dominates underneath the familiar ivory sky. In the foreground, occupying more than a third of the composition, is a ridge or possibly an embankment, overrun with grasses which are thick and uncouth, relieved only by the occasional dismal flower, and is topped by a rough sandy path. Squeezed between the ridge and the soulless sky is an ugly static caravan, next to what appears to be a partly-fenced off, shabby chalet; near to the chalet is a row of terraced houses with a timber-framed construction added to the end of the row of houses; to the far right of the painting is a structure of indeterminate identity, but possibly another chalet. In front of the latter is washing hung out to dry on a rickety wooden fence. The only additions to this sparse scene are a few different sized containers, possibly for storage or for rubbish, or both.

The scene exudes a sense of the temporary and the unplanned, of a location constructed on the hoof. First glances suggest that the place has been drained of all joy or has been abandoned in a hurry. However, as with Brick Pit, closer inspection reveals that in front of the chalet fence are two small figures, probably men, in conversation, virtually swallowed up in the shabby gloom. One of them wears an anorak and has his hands in his pocket; whilst the other wears a bobble hat: both are faceless.

The identity of the two figures and their relationship to the surrounding cramped structures remains a matter for speculation. As in Brick Pit, the two figures are mere signs of humanity, rather than active participants in the scene to add significance to it. Rather than a bright new East coast future, it suggests instead a world that time not so much forgot, as did not really care existed. 

Both Brick Pit and Caravans evoke the despondency and gloom of some kind of post-apocalyptic nightmare, in which all activity has ceased to have meaning and in which human beings are no more than unimportant specks in a barren landscape, barely seen. 

It all seems a long way from jolly beach holidays in Cleethorpes.