
Fallen tree
Watercolour, 2011
60 x 80 cms
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Lunch time at the Mermaid Cafe
Watercolour, 2010
71 x 120 cms
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Station Road, Wakes Colne
Watercolour, 2010
38 x 88 cms |

Southend on Sea, Summer
Watercolour, 2010
72 x 52 cms |

Oak Road, Nocturne
Watercolour, 2011
90 x 60 cms
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Ploughed Field with Viaduct
Watercolour, 2010
54 x 75 cms |

Gap in the Hedge, Winter
Watercolour, 2011
56 x 63 cms |

Wind Farm
Watercolour, 2011
90 x 60 cms |

Towards Sizewell
Watercolour, 2011
31 x 32 cms |

River Bridge
Watercolour, 2011
31 x 32 cms |
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Blasted Trunk
Watercolour, 2011
75 x 50 cms |

Bluebells in Chalkney Wood
Watercolour, 2011
80 x 120 cms |

Fallen Leaves
Watercolour, 2011
90 x 78 cms |

Colne Valley I
Watercolour, 2011
18 x 92 cms
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Colne Valley III
Watercolour, 2011
50 x 150 cms
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Sea wall shadow, Walberswick
Watercolour, 2011
25 x 38 cms
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Beach Hut Areas under Surveillance
Watercolour, 2009
91 x 150 cms |

Colchester Road, Chappel
Watercolour, 2004
56 x 83 cms
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Cold and Damp, Chappel
Watercolour, 2008
83 x 99 cms
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The Culvert
Watercolour, 2008
150 x 90 cms |
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Walton on the Naze, Cliffs
Watercolour, 2007
50 x 135 cms |

Red Berries
Watercolour, 2011
75 x 50 cms |

Steps, Footbridge and Kissing Gate
Watercolour, 2011
100 x 75 cms
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Behind the barns
Watercolour, 2011
38 x 25 cms
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Coppiced wood
Watercolour, 2011
90 x 45 cms
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Tree horizon
Watercolour, 2011
26 x 52 cms
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Summer Landscape
Watercolour, 2011
31 x 32 cms |

Chappel Viaduct
Watercolour, 2011
31 x 32 cms
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Stormy Evening
Watercolour, 2011
31 x 32 cms |

Rough Sea, Frinton
Watercolour, 2010
30 x 45 cms |
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Abbey Ruins, Whitby
Watercolour, 2011
80 x 56 cms
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Ice Cream, Robin Hood's Bay
Watercolour, 2012
75 x 55 cms |

View from Larpool Viaduct towards Whitby
Watercolour, 2012
60 x 90 cms
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Whitby Bay
Watercolour, 2012
40 x 120 cms |
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There is a large watercolour in this exhibition that is not a typical example of Władysław Mirecki's work Lunchtime at the Mermaid Cafe departs from his usual rural subject matter to concentrate on crowded humanity. The landscape element is reduced to a strip of sea glimpsed over the heads of lunching holidaymakers. But the intense observation of detail here is entirely typical the instantly recognisable, slightly precious gesture of the waiter pouring wine tells its own story of character and situation. The perspective of red awnings creates a dynamic rhythm that recurs in many other watercolours, though we more often encounter it as a receding stretch of shore beside sullen breakers or a winter hedgerow plunging deep into the picture space.
Another seaside subject, Southend on Sea, Summer, shows two people sitting in folding chairs with their backs to us, reading, with the view across the estuary beyond. Their individual personalities are vividly caught with a bare minimum of description. The vista behind them is ravishing; in the foreground is a surprisingly (but, we quickly learn, characteristically) broad and undramatic strip of sand and stones.
Mirecki gravitates naturally to the details of the countryside, to an expanse of dry bracken on a grey winter day, a slope of lush unmown grass, a cluster of bluebells in a spring wood. Quite often there is a road, with markings and traffic signs. If he can introduce a double yellow line that most artists would edit firmly out of a rustic scene, he will include it - and a speed limit sign into the bargain, if one is there. This is how we see the countryside now, whether we like it or not: Mirecki paints with such gentle persuasiveness that we accept the anomalies as part and parcel of a benign world.
This insistence on the banal and the modern as unavoidable intruders into our appreciation of nature is a hallmark of his work. It undercuts the often lyrical beauty of his subjects, but never to the point of constituting a modernist 'irony': Mirecki is too subtle for such tricks One of the wittiest instances of this in the current show is an evocative nocturne, Oak Road Nocturne whose subject is a single telegraph wire spanning a country road under a full moon. The glitter of moonlight on the wet tarmac, the deep shadows, the luminous sky, form a frame for this mundane detail, transforming it into a potent pictorial element, like a line of music in the darkness.
Like many East Anglian painters, he is deeply attached to his home, 'rooted in one dear perpetual place' as Yeats put it. The great railway viaduct almost outside his door at Chappel, on the Essex-Suffolk border, recurs like a leitmotif in many subjects, and although he evidently relishes the elegant rhythm of the long arcade as it strides across the fields, we can guess that he also enjoys the presence of a stark industrial reminder in the country setting. The viaduct recurs in a panorama of Station Road, Wakes Co/ne, where it provides counterpoint to a line of very ordinary suburban houses and a web of telegraph wires, determinedly mundane elements that Mirecki builds with unforced assurance into a lyrical ode to everyday England.
His almost obsessive enquiry into the detail of things may seem like a recurrence to the nineteenth century, but his concern with jarring signs of local officialdom, like his preference for large formats, is entirely of the present day, and conveys a muscularity of response that pervades every aspect of his work. That he can translate ideas we associate with the minute and miniature on to huge sheets of paper, and retain a touching sense of intimacy while making large-scale and assertive statements is an impressive achievement.
Andrew Wilton
Visiting Research Fellow, Tate Britain. Formerly Keeper of the British Collection, Tate Gallery.
WŁADYSŁAW MIRECKI
1956 Born Chelmsford, Essex of Polish parentage.
He is self-taught, having painted all his life including his periods gaining his
science degree, as an industrial designer and co-proprietor of Chappel
Galleries (1986 - March 2010). |
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EXHIBITED |
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New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London
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Epping Forest District Museum “Artists in Essex”
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Beecroft Art Gallery, Westcliffe on Sea, Essex 31st Open Exhibition
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Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition
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Foyles Art Gallery, London
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Department of Transport art Competition, Mall Galleries, London
Deuxieme Salon Biennale de L’Aquarelle, Hirson, France (Chelmsford 1993)
Essex County Council, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Essex Commission
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Chappel Galleries, Essex10th Anniverary Exhibition: Solo Exhibition
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Singer and Friedlander, Sunday Times Exhibition, London
Beecroft Art Gallery, Essex: Open Exhibition
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1999 |
Jiangsu Provincial Art Gallery, Nanjing, China: Solo Exhibition
Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition |
2002 |
Chappel Galleries, Essex Blyth Spirit “Walberswick Artists: 1880–2000” |
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Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition
WH Pattersons, London Christmas Mixed Exhibition
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Royal Academy, London Summer Exhibition
WH Pattersons, London Christmas Mixed Exhibition
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Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition
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Royal Watercolour Society Open Competition, Bankside Gallery, London.
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, Mall Galleries, London.
Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition Mall Galleries, London: Winner of the Edward Wesson Award.
Beecroft Art Gallery, Westcliffe on Sea, Essex 49th Essex Open Exhibition: Awarded Prize and Shirley Robson Bowl for the best watercolour.
Chappel Galleries, Essex ‘Southwold, the East Coast’.
Sunday Times/Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander, London: 3rd Prize Winner, The Mall Galleries, London.
Lynn Painter-Stainers, London.
Chichester Open Art Exhibition, Chichester.
Royal West of England Academy 155th Autumn Exhibition, Bristol.
New English Art Club, The Mall Galleries, London.
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RWS/Sunday Times watercolour competition, Bankside Gallery, London
Lynn Painters-Stainers, London (third prize winner) |
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Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition
Lynn Painter-Stainers, London |
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Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 198 Annual Exhibition, London
Eastern Open, King’s Lynn Arts Centre
Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 23rd Year (2nd Prize Winner), Mall Galleries, London
Duncan Campbell Fine Art, London: Solo Exhibition
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Work on loan for opening of new branch of Handelsbanken, Colchester
Sunday Times Watercolour Competition in association with Smith and Williamson: The Mall Galleries, London
Discerning Eye Exhibition: The Mall Galleries, London 10-20 November
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Piers Feetham Gallery, London: Solo Exhibition
Lynn Painter Stainers Exhibition, London
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Chelmsford Borough Museum: Two Man Exhibition with Paul Rumsey, 9th February to 21st April.
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Studio Eleven, Westcliff on Sea, Essex: ‘Kiss the Joy’ mixed exhibition.
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Royal Society of British Artists, Annual Exhibition: The Mall Galleries, London.
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COLLECTIONS |
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Jiangsu Province Art Museum, People’s Republic of China
Jiangsu Province Department of Culture, People’s Republic of China
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Chelmsford Museums, Essex
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Ipswich Borough Council Museums & Galleries, Suffolk
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PUBLICATIONS |
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February Edition, Jiangsu Art Monthly
April Edition, Artists & Illustrators Magazine
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2003 |
A Walk in the Country – 32pp Monograph |
2006 |
“Southwold: An Earthly Paradise” by Geoffrey Munn.
Władysław Mirecki at Fifty – 32pp Monograph.
BBC Television Programme: ‘Seven Man-made Wonders of the East’ interview about Chappel Viaduct, showing Mirecki’s paintings depicting the Viaduct. |
2009 |
Jackdaw Magazine “Easel Words” May/June issue
The Artist Magazine, “Masterclass” November issue
Pratique des Arts magazine France, December issue |
2010 |
Duncan Campbell exhibition brochure: Introduction by Andrew Lambirth, art critic of The Spectator. |
2012 |
Jackdaw Magazine page 36: News 'That Beckam Tattoo'
'Closely Observed' Landscape - East Anglia and Beyond: Introduction by Andrew Wilton published by Piers Feetham Gallery, London.
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