Object Description
CHARLES MARCH GERE, RA, RWS
(1884-1963)
A Cotswold Stonebreaker
Signed l.l.: CHARLES GERE; signed and inscribed with title and the artist’s address on the stretcher
Oil on canvas
41 by 51 cm., 16 by 20 in.
(frame size 55.5 by 65.5 cm., 22 by 26 in.)
Exhibited:
London, Royal Academy, 1938, no.671.
The present work shows the Painswick stonemason, Henry Musty, accompanied by his dog Pepper. He is shown working on the wall of building near Paradise, a small hamlet about half a mile north of Painswick. There is a study for the painting titled A Survival of the Past in a private UK collection. Although exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1938 it seems likely this is the earlier painting known as The Stonebreaker, exhibited at the Birmingham Group Exhibition in 1919 (no.133) and at the Cotswold Gallery in 1921 (no.3).
Gere was born in Gloucester and studied at the Birmingham School of Art under E R Taylor and he joined the staff of the art school in 1893. In the 1890s he worked as an illustrator, contributing to The Quest and books illustrated by the Birmingham Group and designing the frontispiece for William Morris’s News from Nowhere (Kelmscott Press, 1892). In his early career he was involved in a number of the arts and crafts, designing embroidery, metalwork and stained glass and painting the reredos in the Chapel at Madresfield. Gradually, however, he became almost exclusively a landscape painter. In about 1904 he and his sister Margaret settled in Painswick, near Stroud, and many of his subjects were found in the surrounding Cotswolds, which was to become his favourite painting ground. He exhibited at the New Gallery, Society of Painters in Tempera, Royal Academy, New English Art Club, Royal Watercolour Society and Art Workers Guild. A memorial exhibition was held in Gloucester in 1963.