PIRBRIGHT ART CLUB will be 25 years old in October 2024! All our activites have taken place at Lord Pirbright's Hall on Pirbright Green (GU24 0JE) since we opened in 1999. Some of our founder members are still with us, taking an active part in the club meetings, events and exhibitions. Created by art tutor Maggie Read, as a way of continuing art sessions for her students during the long breaks between Adult Education terms, it has become a thriving and successful club. We have a reputation for excellence for the quality and presentation of the work on show at our annual exhibitions.
We attract a wide range of artists, from beginners to professionals, through Maggie's art classes, workshops and demonstrations; via our website and by word-of-mouth. There are two separate groups in the club - Leisure Artists and Exhibiting Artists - each meeting for tutored drawing and painting sessions once a month. Members of both groups come together at our exhibitions, outdoor summer painting days and social events.
Welcome to our website - best viewed on a laptop or tablet!
CLUB NEWS
DENBIES EXHIBITION - MARCH 2024
Denbies Wine Estate Gallery just outside Dorking was the setting for the latest Village Artists Exhibition which ran for one week until Easter Sunday 31st March. Several Pirbright Art Club Members took part including Maggie Read, Ingrid Skoglund, Steve Wells and David Drury.
Maggie sold her painting of Trigg's Lock - shown here - at the exhibition. The buyer knew the spot well, having spent a lot of his childhood canoeing there!
Maggie Read's "corner" of the Denbies exhibition
Steve Wells' "corner" of the Denbies Exhibition
David Drury also sold a print of one of his watercolours, "Grand Union" shown here.
2023 ANNUAL EXHIBITION
Pirbright Art Club staged an excellent Annual Exhibition in Lord Pirbright's Hall over the weekend of Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd December. The event was a great success with many visitors, despite the freezing weather that weekend! The quality of the Club's paintings and the professional presentation was praised by many of our visitors.
A large number of paintings were on display and for sale, including many original framed and unframed paintings. We had a good number of sales from the main exhibition!
The Small Pictures table is now a popular feature with many framed paintings at lower prices, making them ideal gifts! Several members sold their work from the selection of smaller paintings.
Our Studio Clearance Sale on the Sunday featured mainly previously exhibited paintings at very reasonable prices. Prints and cards were also on sale and these always sell well.
Two special raffles were held (with hampers as prizes) and the popular cafe was open to visitors on both days. Our Christmas Craft Market was held in the Clubroom on Saturday and the participants reported good sales.
On Saturday evening, the village lights were turned on outside and Santa installed himself in the Hall receiving many excited young visitors! Many of them then brought their parents in to the exhibition, which was open until 7pm.
At each of our Annual Exhibitions there is an award for "Favourite Picture", chosen by the viewing public. This year's winner was Nina Klein for her lovely mixed-media painting "Misty", which won with a record number of votes! Nina's painting is shown here.
See our Exhibitions page for the list of previous winners, since our Public Vote for Favourite Picture was introduced in 2013!
Scenes from the 2023 Annual Exhibition
These are two examples of paintings exhibited in the Exhibition - Chris Webb's painting of Passionflowers:"How Dare I Be So Beautiful" and Maggie Read's painting of "Eashing Bridge"
SUMMER OUTDOOR PAINTING DAYS 2023
Our Outdoor Painting Days were a great success this summer. The painting locations were all new this year and included Abinger Hammer; Eashing hamlet:
St. Mary's Church, Bentley
Loseley Park & Hatchlands Park (NT).
The photo shows Maggie Read's demo painting at Hatchlands - a view of the lovely old house! More photos on our Activities page!
RAILINGS EXHIBITION 2023
Our Summer outdoor Railings Exhibition took place on Saturday July 29th in conjunction with the Pirbright Horticultural Show. Despite the changeable weather, we did have a reasonably successful day with some sales of paintings, prints and cards. A picture of the "Railings Exhibition" is shown below. See our Exhibitions page for more details.
PIRBRIGHT VILLAGE FAIR 2023
The annual Village Fair was held this year on Saturday June 17th. The "theme" for this year's Fair was "All Around the World". Pirbright Art Club had a double gazebo with a display of framed and unframed paintings, prints and cards for sale. Our stall looked fabulous (see below) and we had lots of visitors. We took a phenomenal amount in picture sales - £840 in total - of which 10% went to the local Church. All-in-all a great day!
QUINCE COTTAGE GALLERY
In November 2022, we were delighted to be asked to put up a rotating display of our members' work at the lovely new gallery space in the former Pirbright Post-Office - Quince Cottage Gallery.
The proprietor, Lindsay Graham, has decided to open up her empty shop to showcase local creative talent, with Pirbright Art Club featuring as the main group of artists, as well as other local makers and craftsmen. This may now prove to be a long-term project and we were pleased to be able to use our own exhibition screens to hang our work in the lovely bow-front window.
This new venture gives us a great opportunity to have a permanent display of artwork that changes frequently. There has been lots of interest in the Gallery and we have sold many paintings, including all of those shown below. Our members should contact Maggie if they wish their work to be included.
Janet Moore's Oil Painting "Great Chanfield Manor Gardens, Wiltshire"
Steve Wells' Oil Painting "Till the Cows Come Home"
Sue Pallot's Oil Painting "Horsing Around"
Frank Fuller's Oil Painting "Pirbright Pond"
Jenny Griffith's Oil Painting "Red Path"
David Hardcastle's Watercolour Painting "Pirbright Shops"
Colin Wood's Watercolour Painting inspired by a Larkin poem
2022
The Club held 3 exhibitions in 2022, a pop-up one in June at the local church, our Summer "Railings" exhibition held outside Lord Pirbright's Hall in July and our flagship Annual Exhibition held inside Lord Pirbright's Hall in early December. The pictures shown here are from these exhibitions.
2021
After Lockdown - the recommencement of 'live' sessions happened in July 2021.
Earlier, Maggie had e-mailed all members to say: "I do hope we have managed to keep you engaged with the club over the past months (of lockdown). I know that some of you have enjoyed trying out the various 'themes' and many have viewed my demo videos, whether on YouTube or via links to my Google photo albums.
Several members took part in a project to create the "Pirbright in Art" book, which was being put together by the local Church committee as a 'fund-raiser' book featuring images of Pirbright, by local residents and art clubs. Members sent in their drawings or paintings of local Pirbright scenes, some of which had been produced on Maggie's Summer Outdoor Painting Days in previous years. We were delighted with the finished product, which was published just in time for the Pirbright Village Fair on September 4th. Many paintings by our members feature in the book, which we helped to sell on our stall. (Copies are £10 each and can be ordered through the Church website or bought from the Quince Cottage Gallery.)
Pirbright Church by Alison Clarke
Little Girl Statue by Maggie Read
We had two Meet and Draw outdoor sessions in May 2021 and they were well attended by members, giving them a chance to catch up with each other after many months and to do a bit of drawing too! See photos in our NEWS section.
We produced a Spring 2021 Pirbright Art Club Newsletter - in the midst of the last Lockdown! Please click on the logo to see the PDF version.
This edition was dedicated to the various ways that some of our members used their time during the latest enforced isolation, when even the weather was against us all, keeping us all indoors and encouraging us to get down to some of the things we don't usually find time for - a plus-side to the Covid restrictions perhaps?
2020
Our 2020 'Virtual' Annual Exhibition was displayed throughout December 2020 on the website. The exhibition was very successful with many of our artists participating and over a hundred paintings for sale. The online exhibition was well received and many people commented on how professional it looked. A significant number of artists sold paintings and we are glad we were able to show some of our members' latest work.
During the 2020 Lockdown, members continued to be actively involved with the club by following the monthly 'themes' from home. Maggie was available to advise or critique work via WhatsApp or by email. Members were encouraged to post their own work on our Facebook page. From May 2020, members could access YouTube videos specially created for their own group. These short films were mainly to give inspiration to members to keep going with their art. Maggie's finished demonstration pieces were sent to members as an attached jpg as well as appearing on the website later. Two of these final pieces are shown below and some appeared in the "Virtual" Annual Exhibition.
FRIDAY CLASS 2020
Maggie's Friday Morning Painting Class, which was running 'virtually' via WhatsApp during each period of lockdown, also re-opened 'live' in late September, at Lord Pirbright's Hall, until the hall had to close again in November! When they were unable to meet in person for weekly classes, members posted images of their latest work (following that week's theme) at various stages of completion, for Maggie's advice and comments. Some examples of Friday Class lockdown work on the themes of "Still-life, in the style of the "Scottish Colourists" and "Garden Shadows", are shown here (right and below). See further examples on Maggie's website: www.maggieread.co.uk
MAGGIE READ
Maggie took part in Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year, as one of the Wildcard Artists, at the West Reservoir Centre in Hackney. This was the second heat filmed at this location. This heat was filmed on one of the hottest days in August 2020. The episode was televised in February 2021. For more photos, see News.
2019
20th ANNIVERSARY CHRISTMAS SOCIAL
Our 20th Anniversary Christmas Social, held at the Worplesdon Golf Club, in mid-December, 2019, was well attended by over 50 members and friends. The golf club did us proud with an excellent venue, superb food and first-class service. This was an occasion to remember!
During the event we were entertained by magician, Chris Scade, and then singer/ songwriter Dean Dyson, who serenaded us with his guitar during and after our meal - some of us even ended up dancing. Everyone agreed that the Social was a great way to end our 20th Anniversary year.
