Moving forward
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Words by Mercedes Smith
Simeon Stafford at 70 marks another milestone in a prolific life in painting.
This summer, British art celebrates the 70th birthday of an artist who began his long career as something of a child prodigy. At the age of 14, Simeon Stafford was exhibiting at galleries across his native north of England, and he had already been selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London. Since then, he has become one of the UKs most beloved painters, thanks to an unpretentious mix of riotous brushwork and his characterful interpretations of people and places.
Simeon was born in Manchester in 1956, and as a child was introduced to painter L.S. Lowry who became a friend of the family and encouraged him to become an artist. Simeon went on to study art at Hyde College and became a professional painter in his teens, exhibiting works that reflected the gritty northern landscape in what has been called a Primitive style. “Someone once asked me why I don’t paint the Venice canals,” he is quoted as saying in a book of his works, “to which I replied, ‘I paint the canals of Salford’”. This unapologetic devotion to the immediate experiences of his own life, and of British life in general, still defines Simeon’s work, but in contrast to Lowry and others, his particular take on Britishness is witty, optimistic and wonderfully uplifting.
In 1996 he moved to Cornwall, where the scenery and very different way of life significantly changed his work. He was introduced to artists Terry Frost and Patrick Heron, and their influence, as well as that of Lowry’s, is evident in Stafford’s figures, his densely populated scenes, and in his palette. Now, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, I ask him how it feels to look back at the career he has achieved so far. “I never look back, or try not to,” says Simeon. “Art must always move forwards.”
Simeon gets up at 6am and works all day, seven days a week, from a studio that looks out across Mounts Bay. He is prolific to say the least: his home and studio are stacked out with wet oil works and lively sculptures of various creatures and characters. Simeon is not slowing down at 70, and all bets are off when he puts brush to canvas after breakfast. “I get up early, not knowing what I’m going to paint, and that’s the way I like it,” he tells me. “It would be a boring world if I knew what the next day would bring.”
The word boring doesn’t relate to Simeon’s artwork either. Every picture is a wild ride of action and accentuated character, where people display all the eccentricities of humanity, and you can lose hours taking in the details, from skipping ropes and sandcastles to gossiping mothers and unruly pups. “The characters I put into my paintings reflect a certain view on the world, and they all play their part on the stage of life,” says Simeon. “I see the outside world, but when I paint it’s from within, and I always pay attention to the humour in things. We need humour today more than ever. I would compare my point of view to the joy children feel when they see the ocean for the first time, and I think people relate to that when they look at my work.”
That joyfulness radiates from a host of characters, some generic, some specific, all living their best life through Simeon’s brush. “Like real life, my figures are all busy doing something,” he says. “Someone once asked me if I put all those figures in my paintings simply to show off. They must never have visited Blackpool in the 50s and 60s and seen all the people on the beach eating ice cream, riding donkeys, and leaving their granny on the sand in a returning tide.” Central to Simeon’s paintings are a host of characters from his own life, who appear again and again in any situation or setting. Knowing them, finding them, and following their never-ending story through countless works of art has become something of a sport for devoted collectors. Among them, Aunt Dot, Trixie the Jack Russel, the lady with hair extensions and Ruby the little girl with pigtails are most sought after and adored. “I never met my Aunt Dot,” Simeon tells me, “but I know from my mother that she was always doing hand stands in the backyard of their home in Dukinfield. From quite young I found myself painting the figure of a child practising hand stands.”
Top: Brea Hill | Above: Circus on the Thames
Aunt Dot is in nearly all of Simeon’s paintings, beside a little jumping dog, “my beloved Jack Russell Trixie” he says, “who used to catch rabbits for our meals when I was small.” Ruby the girl with pigtails – sometimes running, or throwing snowballs, or maybe riding her bike – is inspired by a girl Simeon met in Marazion when she was dressed in uniform for her first day at school. “She had long black hair and lived on Saint Michael’s Mount,” he says. “Ruby will be an adult now, but I still like to paint her as that little girl with pigtails.” And then there is the lady with hair extensions. “She came bursting into one of my house warming parties once and said ‘I want to be in your paintings!’, so she is.” Simeon’s human characters are accompanied by animals that have been part of his life, like Trixie of course, and others including donkeys – “I’ve always loved donkeys and used to keep them as pets on our farm”– and Fluffy the cat. “Fluffy belongs to my son Alex and his wife Hannah,” he explains. “Hannah chose Fluffy as a kitten for her gran, and when her dear gran passed away Hannah and Alex adopted her, aged 16, but she is still young at heart and as fluffy as ever.”
Over time Simeon’s paintings have given rise to sculptures of his famous cast of characters in papier-mâché, mixed media, and even bronze. He has also developed specific painting collections around working British industries, past and present. “After visiting Beer in Devon I began my fisherman series and spent two or three years working on that,” says Simeon. “And when I was young, I lived in the north, so my series on miners is drawn from my memories of that time, and is also a reference to the tin miners of Cornwall.” From his near 60-year career, is there a favourite collection or work of art, I ask him, that he has made or painted? “Well, that’s a question!” he laughs. “I couldn’t answer that. I have pictures that I painted when I was ten years old, and I keep works I’ve made in many different styles and materials, but there have been so many works of art. I have been moving into abstraction lately, using themes and variations just as you do with music, but I seem to have moved in and out of many styles throughout my life and I never allow myself to get painter’s block. I just make a mark on the canvas and move forwards into the unknown.”
See Simeon’s 70th Birthday exhibition from 30th June to 28th July at Whitewater Contemporary, The Parade, Polzeath, PL27 6SR and at wwcg.co.uk.
