Claughton Pellew

Claughton Pellew was an English painter, watercolourist and wood engraver whose work occupies a distinctive position within the tradition of British twentieth-century landscape art and printmaking. Although he remained relatively little known during his lifetime, his exquisite wood engravings and sensitive landscape paintings have subsequently attracted considerable recognition from collectors, curators and historians. His artistic vision was shaped by a profound love of the natural world, a strong spiritual sensibility and a preference for the quiet rhythms of rural existence over the industrialisation and mechanisation of modern society. Working largely in isolation in the Norfolk countryside, Pellew developed a highly individual style characterised by extraordinary technical precision, subtle tonal contrasts and an almost devotional attention to the details of nature.

Born in Redruth, Cornwall, on 11 April 1890, Claughton Pellew was the son of William Pellew-Harvey, a mining engineer, and Elizabeth Hichens, an artist. Shortly after his birth, the family emigrated to western Canada, where his father pursued his professional interests. Pellew spent much of his early childhood surrounded by the expansive Canadian landscape, travelling through forests, mountains and lakes. These early experiences of the natural world would have a lasting influence on his artistic imagination. The family returned to England in 1901, settling in London, where his father established a mining consultancy.

Pellew attended Merchant Taylors' School between 1902 and 1906 before entering the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 1907. He studied there until 1911, during a particularly remarkable period in the institution's history. His contemporaries included Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson, Stanley Spencer, David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Edward Wadsworth and C. R. W. Nevinson. His teachers included Henry Tonks and the painter Philip Wilson Steer. The Slade provided an exceptionally stimulating environment in which traditional academic training existed alongside increasingly experimental approaches to modern art.

Of particular importance was Pellew's friendship with Paul Nash, which developed into a lifelong artistic association. Nash greatly admired Pellew's sensitivity towards nature, later recalling his friend's extraordinary capacity to observe the countryside with both precision and emotional intensity. Pellew's influence encouraged Nash to look more carefully at the natural environment and to appreciate the expressive potential of seemingly ordinary landscape features. Although their subsequent artistic careers developed in different directions, both artists shared an interest in the mysterious and spiritual qualities of the English landscape.

Following his studies, Pellew travelled to Italy, where he encountered the art of the Florentine Renaissance. He was particularly impressed by the paintings of Fra Angelico and other early Italian masters, whose religious imagery and spiritual understanding of the natural world made a profound impression upon him. His experiences in Italy also strengthened his developing interest in Roman Catholicism, and he converted to Catholicism in 1914. This religious commitment became a defining influence upon his personal philosophy and artistic outlook.

When the First World War broke out, Pellew's religious convictions led him to become a conscientious objector. Following the introduction of conscription in 1916, he refused military service on grounds of conscience and was imprisoned. He was held at several Home Office work centres, including Dyce near Aberdeen, Wakefield and Dartmoor, where he experienced the considerable hardships imposed upon conscientious objectors. His refusal to participate in the conflict resulted in a prolonged period of isolation and personal difficulty. The experience appears to have reinforced his desire for a quieter, more contemplative existence, away from the destructive forces of industrialised modern society.

Following his release, Pellew married Emma Marie Tennent, known as Kechie, in 1919. She was also an artist and had studied at the Slade between 1912 and 1914, having been encouraged by Pellew to pursue her artistic education. Their marriage established an important creative partnership, with both artists sharing an appreciation of nature, rural life and traditional artistic techniques.

The couple moved to Overstrand on the north Norfolk coast in 1919, eventually settling in Southrepps in 1927, where they remained for the rest of their lives. They built their own house and adopted a deliberately simple lifestyle, relying upon bicycles rather than motor cars, using paraffin lamps and cultivating their garden. Their relative isolation allowed Pellew to concentrate upon painting, drawing and printmaking without the distractions of the metropolitan art world.

During the early 1920s, Pellew continued to paint in oils and watercolour, producing landscapes, still lifes and figure compositions. He also experimented with etching before discovering wood engraving in 1923, the medium for which he would become best known. He exhibited three engravings at the inaugural exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1923, marking the beginning of an important association with the revival of British wood engraving.

Pellew's approach to wood engraving was closely connected to the traditions established by Thomas Bewick and the later Arts and Crafts movement. He admired the directness and craftsmanship of traditional printmaking, finding in the technique a means of expressing his appreciation of the natural world. Working on the end grain of boxwood, he developed an exceptional command of the graver, creating intricate compositions through the careful removal of tiny sections of wood. The resulting prints are distinguished by their rich contrasts of black and white, delicate tonal gradations and extraordinary variety of textures.

His favourite subjects included hayricks, trees, agricultural buildings, animals and rural workers. Works such as The Ricks (1927), The Oak Tree (1927), The Ploughman (1925), The Return (1925) and The Smithy (1930) demonstrate his ability to transform familiar rural subjects into compositions of considerable visual complexity. A Gloucestershire Lane (1934), now in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland, is another fine example of his technical accomplishment. His religious interests also found expression in prints such as The Entombment (1930), which demonstrates his ability to bring spiritual subject matter into the highly disciplined language of wood engraving.

Pellew's paintings are equally interesting, particularly his watercolours of Norfolk and Bavaria. His landscapes frequently possess a quiet, contemplative atmosphere, with carefully observed trees, fields, buildings and skies arranged into balanced compositions. During visits to Bavaria in 1923 and again between 1929 and 1933, he and Kechie stayed at Tutzing on the shores of Lake Starnberg. The landscape, with its lakes, forests and distant mountains, reminded him of his childhood in Canada and provided inspiration for a number of drawings and watercolours. His painting View from the Studio (1930), depicting a snowy landscape framed by an interior window, illustrates his ability to combine close observation with a subtle sense of atmosphere.

Despite the quality of his work, Pellew exhibited relatively infrequently. He showed at the New English Art Club in 1925 and participated in exhibitions of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1923, 1930 and 1932. His reluctance to pursue a public career, combined with his remote existence in Norfolk, meant that he never achieved the widespread recognition enjoyed by some of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, his work was admired by fellow artists, particularly Paul Nash, who recognised the intensity and originality of his approach to landscape.

Pellew's artistic concerns have subsequently been associated with the wider British Neo-Romantic movement, particularly the work of Eric Ravilious, John Piper, Graham Sutherland and Robin Tanner. Although he preceded the emergence of this movement, his interest in rural subjects, traditional craftsmanship and the spiritual qualities of landscape anticipated many of its central concerns.

Claughton Pellew died in Norfolk in 1966. His reputation received renewed attention following exhibitions at Norwich in 1967 and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in 1987. Further exhibitions were organised in Hove, London, King's Lynn and Exeter during 1990, followed by another presentation in King's Lynn in 2001. In 2016, on the fiftieth anniversary of his death, Norwich Castle Museum presented To Watch the Corn Grow, and the Blossoms Set: The Art of Claughton Pellew, bringing together his paintings, drawings and engravings and re-examining his contribution to British art.

His work is represented in several important public collections, including the Ashmolean Museum, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Manchester Art Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Hove Museum and Art Gallery, the National Galleries of Scotland and Auckland Art Gallery. His wood engraving Gloucestershire Lane is also held in the British Council Collection.

Claughton Pellew remains a particularly individual and rewarding figure in the history of British printmaking. His commitment to traditional craftsmanship, religious conviction and the contemplative observation of nature produced an artistic legacy of remarkable delicacy and integrity. Although he deliberately avoided the public attention and artistic fashions of his time, his engravings and paintings reveal a highly accomplished artist whose work deserves consideration alongside the finest British landscape artists and wood engravers of the twentieth century.