OH I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE: PETER BRANNAN ON THE EAST COAST

FOCH were recently contacted by Dr Malcolm Moyes, who is currently researching and writing a book on the Cleethorpes born artist Peter Brannan, which has the support of the artist's estate. Rather than wait until the book is complete, Malcolm would like to publish excerpts from the work in progress on the internet and FOCH are delighted that he has asked us to provide a home for these excerpts, on our Facebook page and website, naturally accompanied by examples of Peter’s paintings.

OH I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE: PETER BRANNAN ON THE EAST COAST

Peter Brannan was born in 1926, in Cleethorpes, so it is hardly surprising that many of his paintings draw upon the beachscapes, seascapes and townscapes of the Lincolnshire coast. It is also not surprising that this group of pictures sold well during his lifetime and have had an enduring popularity since his death in 1994.

For many people familiar with his work, Peter Brannan was pre-eminently a painter of quirky and sometimes enigmatic pictures of the British working-class on holiday, enjoying themselves by the pier, relaxing with an ice-cream on the sand or just dipping a toe into a fresh North Sea. It would seem undeniable that no exhibition of his work would be complete without Peter Brannan’s evocations of families on holiday at a Lincolnshire seaside resort, and especially in Cleethorpes.

Whilst it is evident that Peter Brannan’s work mainly focussed upon depicting Lincolnshire coastal scenes during the holiday season, there is at least one contrasting painting, completed in 1960, which specifically portrays Cleethorpes in winter. East Coast December is a sombre Cleethorpes beach scene, sparsely occupied, which shows a deserted Wonderland Amusement Park and a still Big Dipper as its backdrop. Unfortunately, the present whereabouts of the painting is unknown.

There are also three other paintings of coastal subjects in winter which could be grouped alongside East Coast December, but are not necessarily representations of Cleethorpes. Winter, East Coast; January, East Coast; and Winter by the pier were all exhibited at the One-Man Exhibition at the Corby Glen Willoughby Memorial Hall in 1988, although they may have been painted and exhibited elsewhere much earlier.

Very occasionally, Brannan made a geographical shift to the South coast, if not a thematic one, having produced two paintings in the 1960’s, South Coast and Beach South Coast, which were exhibited at the prestigious Trafford Gallery in London. However, these are self-evident exceptions and around one hundred of his paintings, completed between the early 1950’s and 1992, indicate that the Lincolnshire coast was something to which he returned time and time again, in particular the carefree relaxations of the traditional bucket and spade holiday.

Brannan’s paintings in general and his townscapes in particular, on close inspection, reveal that they were often built from disparate sources and therefore do not always have a totally specific geographical identity, despite first impressions to the contrary. It is a technique which was also employed in the creation of some of his seaside paintings where imaginative engagement with invention is invited, rather than the identification and recognition of the factually familiar. Sea View (pictured left), for example, an engaging and charming 1974 painting of a seaside townscape with beach, creates an illusion of the real through such specific names as Sea View Hotel and The Welcome Café; it is an illusion perhaps re-enforced by the existence of Sea View Street in Cleethorpes. On the other hand, Brannan’s reported response when asked about the location of the scene in Sea View was that it was nowhere in particular: it was “anywhere you like”.

However, many of the seaside scenes are indisputable representations of his home town of Cleethorpes, both on and around the beach. Even without the supporting evidence of a specific title which reference the town, Brannan’s use of well-known Cleethorpes landmarks such as the Pier, the Clock Tower, the Promenade, the Big Dipper and the Big Wheel – the staples of a picture postcard industry promoting the resort – is a clear indicator of location. Occasionally, there is a foray away from the beach attractions, into the town itself, as in the two versions of Station Approach, but these are few in number, and even then, the sea is made visible in the background.

The style of the beach paintings changes over time, although it is difficult to identify a smooth pattern of stylistic transition and development, and is made almost impossible by Brannan’s habit of putting unfinished and unsatisfactory pictures to one side and then returning to improve and complete them at a later date.

Some of the representations, especially those completed in the late 1950’s and 1960’s, tend towards impressionistic, panoramic snapshots of the beach, surrounded by the various tourist attractions and local architecture in close and more distant proximity. The figures on the beach are sparse and with little individual identity, almost incidental in the totality of the picture. Coast scene at Cleethorpes (1961) and East Coast Beach (1974) are typical of this wide-lens approach to the subject.

There is a perceptible shift seen in a group of paintings from around the late 1960’s onwards towards a greater emphasis upon individuals and groups of people on the

beach during the holiday season. Whilst many of this group still include the architectural constructions of the town, these tend to remain unobtrusively in the background, as mere backdrop to the bathers, sitters and strollers on the beach. A Day by the Sea (pictured right) and Bathers on the Sand, both completed in 1970, are typical of this approach, dominated by men and children, relaxed and enjoying their time away from the daily grind of work and school, as is East Coast Beach Scene, completed two years later, in 1972.

The muted, predominantly brown palette of these and other paintings of the East Coast changes to brighter, more vivid colours by the early 1980’s. In particular, ivory skies shift to a picture postcard bright blue, creating a vibrant image of seaside fun and leisure. The change can be seen most strikingly in the two 1982 paintings East Coast Beach and Cleethorpes, and in probably Brannan’s final 1992 representation of the East Coast, Cleethorpes Beach Scene, which is now in the Usher Gallery, Lincoln. It would be tempting to link this shift to some kind of change in the circumstances or psychological disposition of the artist. The explanation, however, is much more mundane: it was merely a response to a suggestion from a friend whose opinions Peter Brannan valued and respected.

The apparent naivety and simplicity of Brannan’s figures in and around the beach invites comparisons with L S Lowry and his followers. There are points of contact with Lowry and other chroniclers of life in the industrial heartlands of England, such as Alan Lowndes (1921-1978) and Geoffrey Woolsey Birks (1929-1993), but the similarities remain superficial. Brannan’s representations of the British at play on the East Coast contain no hint of nostalgia for something lost or documenting something about to disappear, but rather a sense of close connection with the present, despite the challenging shifting patterns of the holiday industry in the second half of the C20th. They chronicle comfortable ordinariness, the stuff of everyday life, in sometimes quite extraordinary ways.

Dr Malcolm Moyes