Checking the oils and waters...

preparing for the anniversary exhibition are committee members (from left) secretary Cliff Moorhouse, Janis Bowie and John McCombs

Society gears up for its 60th anniversary art exhibition

AN art group which has boasted Helen Bradley among its members is holding its 60th anniversary exhibition.

LS Lowry was also a regular visitor at Saddleworth Group of Artists which is one of the strongest in the region.

The organisation was founded by water-colour painter Ellis Shaw and his friends who wanted to promote the study of fine arts and hold meetings and exhibitions.

They rented the top floor of a house in Spring Street, Uppermill, where they organised exhibitions, life classes and workshops funded by the Carnegie Trust — a group which invests in innovation.

Lowry, who took a keen interest in the group, attended its exhibitions and was among its well-known tutors.

Current members include respected painter John McCombs, a member of several prestigious art societies, who said: “LS Lowry was a great friend of Ellis Shaw.

“They even tended to swap paintings in the days when Lowry wasn’t famous.”

And John said it was the Salford painter who encouraged Helen Bradbury along the path which saw her achieve world-wide charming scenes of her Oldham childhood.

“She was just a normal, straightforward landscape painter,” explained John who was president of the group for six years until last year.

“Lowry suggested to her she might start painting the scenes of her childhood in a naive manner and her career just took off from there.”

When the lease ran out on the Spring Street studio, the group switched its annual exhibition to the new art gallery at Saddleworth Museum.

It went on to introduce spring and winter exhibitions at Brownhill Countryside Centre and Millgate Arts Centre, Delph, while this year it will host artists from America, France and Switzerland as a member of the international group Journees de Peinture.

With more than 50 members, including full-time artists, John said: “People tend to work in their own studio or at home now. We are not really what you would call a society that gets together to paint.”

A stringent selection process for membership and exhibitions results in a high standard and the 60th anniversary summer exhibition boasts around 80 works.

It runs from tomorrow to June 27 and John added: “I can honestly say that the Saddleworth Group of Artists is one of the strongest local art groups in the North-West, possibly in the north.

“I go to some other exhibitions and I think ‘that really wasn’t worth visiting’. If I was somebody passing by this exhibition I would be mightily impressed.”