Over his long and successful career David Remfry MBE RA RWS has achieved a mastery of watercolour that few have matched. Unusually for the medium, he works on a large scale and often focuses on people, exploring the dance hall and the nightclub in breathtaking images that are at once beautiful and edgy.
This book is the first full-length monograph devoted to the artist's watercolours. Its author, James Russell, is well known for his writing on 20th-century British artists. Russell brings his scholarship, humour and fascination for people and their lives to his study of Remfry's career, tracing the evolution of a remarkable talent, looking in depth at the most significant works and placing Remfry in the context of both the British watercolour tradition and international contemporary painting. This is at once a glorious art book and an intimate portrait of city life.
Having spent 20 years living and working at the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York, Remfry has a following on both sides of the Atlantic. New Yorkers - often in party mode - feature in many of his watercolours, and his recollections of people and places add colour to the text.
I thoroughly enjoyed working with David on this book and on the accompanying exhibition, which runs until July at the Royal Watercolour Society's beautiful new gallery at Whitcomb St, London W1 (an addition to its Bankside Gallery, NB, not a replacement).
We're going to be In Conversation at the gallery at 6pm on Friday 20 May. Having spent a lot of time chatting with David over the past year I can recommend buying a ticket - he's great fun!
Info and tickets available from the Royal Watercolour Society.
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