Henri's Paintings

 

A Suffolk Scene

Throughout my child-hood, and until he died, Henri spent some of his spare time painting. Mostly landscapes and country life to which he felt very close. He started with water-colours, but by the 1940s he had started to use pastels to great affect. He did a life-like pastel of a collie dog owned by a friend. Sadly, I have no idea where it is now. His pastels were rich but basically realistic in nature. During the 1950s and 1960s he moved on to oils and found success in exhibitions in the Russel Coates Galleries in Bournemouth and others. In fact, he had his own showings. He sold quite a few of his works which helped him survive and pay for the paints, and certainly lifted up his spirits. At  half-way through the 1960s he was invited to stay in Radnorshire, Wales, with his friend Innes Ireland, the Formula One and Sports Car driver. Innes had a friend called Dick in his locality who painted very well who knew Augustus John the controversial artist. John invited Henri to bring along some paintings to his studio in Fordingbridge, which he was pleased and honoured to do. The great man urged Henri to put more of his time to painting. Sadly, money was needed to survive and so Henri, who also in great demand at that time for his modelling, so painting had to take second place. If he had lived to retire, I guess he would have put more time to painting. I inherited some of his pictures, but many of them I did not even see. One of his admirers was Lord Goodman, one-time Minister for the Arts, who called Henri "an artist in his own time", mainly refering to his scratch modelling though. Henri was really pleased with that praise, coming from such an authority as that.

The Rufus Stone in the New Forest, Hampshire, UK

The Tower Bridge in a London Mist, London, UK

I only have only the three paintings shown above, and I wish I knew where some of the others are, can anyone help me find them?

Over the years, Henri also did many other forms of art to express himself and he was always trying something new. He did leather embossing but any that were around when we cleared out his workshop were damaged beyond use. He made a lovely piece of emotive structural art for my wife and myself for our wedding present consisting of two silver interlinked hearts on a laminated hardwood base with an electric light-bulb in a multi-coloured Tiffany-type lantern which was mounted on a diamond pivot. When the bulb was lit, the shade rotated throwing beams of coloured light on the walls of a dimly lit room. The idea was that our hearts would be 'inter-twined' for ever. It seems to have worked for we are very much together over   fifty years on. Seems like 'for ever', anyway!

the silver hearts lamp with a temporary light installed

He frequently made brass ornaments, he loved beating brass by hand and teaching others to do the same.

Can anyone identify the artist refered to above as 'Dick', here is one of his paintings. I am pretty sure that he lived in Radnorshire, Wales.

can anybody identify this artist?