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Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)

Exhibition 2021

Saturday 22nd May 2021 to Sunday 20th June 2021

Wednesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm or by appointment

Sizes quoted are of artworks. Where enquiries of prices are made on the gallery, the work is subject to availability and the price to change.

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Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Blue boat on the shore
Oil on canvas
50 x 61
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Boat houses on a Suffolk shore
Oil on board
50 x 60
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Cottage in Suffolk Landscape
Oil on board
61 x 71
£1,200
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Cottage in the Yorkshire Dales
Oil on board
61 x 64
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Country lane in summer
Oil on board
61 x 71
£1,200
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Daffodils on Orange Cloth
Oil on canvas
51 x 61
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Daffodils
Oil on board
51 x 61
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Deconstructed Ratatouille
Oil on canvas
51 x 61
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Dry stone wall in Embsay, North Yorkshire
Oil on board
49 x 59
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Dry stone wall, North Yorkshire
Oil on canvas
41 x 51
£850
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Embsay, North Yorkshire
Oil on canvas
51 x 58
£950
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Evening Clouds
Oil on canvas
51 x 61
£1,100
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Full moon
Oil on canvas
61 x 51
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Gated Cottage
Oil on board
49 x 59
£850
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Lake District landscape
Oil on board
51 x 61
£1,100
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Landscape with Church
Oil on board
51 x 61
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Lane through the Yorkshire Dales
Oil on canvas
51 x 61
£950
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Oranges and Lemons
Oil on board
51 x 61
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Piel de Sapo
Oil on canvas
61 x 51
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Scottish loch
Oil on board
51 x 61
£1,100
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Silver birch on Suffolk Lane
Oil on board
51 x 61
£1,100
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Still life with Coffee Pot
Oil on board
51 x 61
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Still life with Green Bottle
Oil on canvas
51 x 61
£850
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Still life with Orange
Oil on canvas
40 x 51
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Still life with Red Bottle
Oil on board
51 x 61
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Still life with White Mug
Oil on board
61 x 71
£975
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Stream through Meadows
Oil on board
31 x 41
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Suffolk Church Tower
Oil on board
51 x 61
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Suffolk Farmland
Oil on board
30 x 34
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Suffolk scene with Cows
Oil on board
25 x 30
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Suffolk Stream
Oil on board
54 x 80
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Summer in Suffolk
Oil on board
61 x 71
£1,300
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
The Bridge
Oil on board
51 x 61
£850
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Tree in Winter
Oil on canvas
51 x 61
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Tree on the Shore
Oil on canvas
51 x 61
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Trees by the Stream
Oil on board
40 x 40
SOLD
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Trees in Meadow
Oil on board
61 x 51
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Village at Night
Oil on board
51 x 61
£925
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Winter in the Mountains
Oil on board
60 x 60
£1,100
Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)
Yorkshire Village
Oil on board
46 x 61
£850

Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)

"There is a cloud that looks like a Grand Piano”

We human beings are the animals that make pictures. We can’t help it. It’s what we do. Our pictures can show us things that aren’t there, yet, or never were, and give other people looking over our shoulders while we daub a view into our “minds”. Pictures are a means of communication because we are also the animals that infer. We look for meaning. “Show me a mark and I’ll read it.” Written language was evolved from picture language. Metaphor of metaphor. But the process is a philosophical palindrome; conscious experience as picture to significant mark to letter/word and back again via perceived letter/word to consequent picture image and conscious experience. As a conveyor of truth this line of buckets has plenty of opportunity to discard and corrupt its contents. However, the system is so complex and beguiling that adept rhetorical manipulation can relieve it of any need for truthful content to be convincing. The shiny buckets in their charming line are more than enough to satisfy curiosity. Thus anything can be “true” if the syntax of “truth’s” expression is consistent. Peter Abelard, the wrangler, could argue that black was white beyond contradiction using his exorable logic, Now, of course, the bright gleam of consistent logic has become somewhat fuzzy, but its post 1931 make-over still charms.

I paint therefore I am

Ron was surprised when I told him that he could clean his brushes with turps. His painting technique was very much his own as he really was self-taught. Its directness and simplicity was exactly all he needed and because of his alla prima style the resulting pictures are materially very sound. A cardboard box of paint tubes and a cluster of brushes served him well. Nothing fancy. No mahogany or brass for Ron. He had an immediacy of being with his paint. I always fancied that he was a little like Van Gogh in being a compulsive painter, but unlike Van Gogh he didn’t need the external motif to stimulate and direct his creativity. The picture was somewhere is his mind, to be found. The paint, the mark, the movement of colours across the panel were Ron’s motif and if an image emerged worthy of his painting process it was left as a finished picture. If unworthy, it was removed. Scraped off with a palette knife. Gone…

He painted after work. At first after his duties on board the Naval Sloop and later when he returned home from the Path Lab at night. So much of his painting was done by tungsten light while the world slept that he told me he had to be careful with yellow because of having painted so long by artificial light. Having done his duty - he had left school at 15 and joined the navy; he had studied in the evenings to become qualified; he had worked over a microscope at the hospital - he painted. His own reality was in the process of the painting. From paint to mark, from mark to image. The process, the self, the paint, the mark, and if worthy, the image.

Ron used to come to my classes at Bury college and I would watch him at work. He knew a lot about pictures and had a very educated taste. We talked a lot. Later on when he really couldn’t see very well I used to visit him at home. He was a tough little Geordie who had literally seen the world.

David Denby

Ronald Ronaldson (1919-2015)

Ronald Ronaldson ,my father, was born in 1919 in Newcastle upon Tyne. He won a scholarship to the Junior Technical school but it was only when he joined the Royal Navy in the 1940s he took up watercolour and oil painting. It was in Cape Town that his first set of paints was purchased.

Painting turned out to be his passion but not at the expense of family and working life. He was employed at the West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds for all of his working life which meant his painting was done “ after hours or at weekends”. There was never a family holiday where the sketchbook was not present and in use. Indeed some of the family days out would encompass day trips to London and visits to galleries in Cork and Albemarle Street along with the more traditional galleries . Always keen to have conversations with the gallery owners , artists and students met in the Royal Academy, his knowledge became wide and varied often surprising the most knowledgeable experts. He was always researching and listening and always willing to help and mentor all from grandchildren to other artists.

Whilst working he initially joined the Bury Art Club and became a regular exhibitor in their annual shows and it was here his work began to be admired and respected outside of Bury St Edmunds. Over the years he began to exhibit more frequently in and around East Anglia at Gainsborough House ,the Phoenix gallery, the Hunter Gallery, Langham fine art and Chappel galleries.

It was only when he retired his work really took off in terms of breadth and diversity of subject and technique. Family visits to the home would always mean viewing new pictures in different styles and subject matters and it was always a treat to be able to see them adorn all the walls of his and all close family homes . Indeed his pictures are now in all family homes from Newcastle to Basle.
Equally I know that his pictures are admired by many outside of the family and he certainly had an admiring public. Having spent many hours with my father in galleries, at his own and other exhibitions, I also know he was something of an “artists artist” always happy to converse with like minds. I hope his pictures continue to give as much pleasure to everyone as they have to the family.

Clive Ronaldson