Dave Pearson (painter)

David Samuel Pearson (4 August 1937 – 19 July 2008), commonly known as "Dave Pearson", was an English painter and educator who was "a great example of an artist whose life was completely dedicated to serving the imagination". Highly prolific, throughout his life he produced a prodigious quantity of work.

Dave Pearson was born in Clapton, London in 1937. His father, Sam, was a tailor and his mother Ann went on, in later life, to become a prolific self-taught artist. Pearson was evacuated to Leicester at the age of 7, and later attended Parmiter's Grammar School in Bethnal Green.

He went on to study painting at both Saint Martin's School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. In 1963 he began teaching at Preston School of Art but soon moved to Manchester School of Art where he remained until his retirement in 2002. He lived and kept a studio in Haslingden, Rossendale, as well as at Globe Arts, also in Rossendale. Although he exhibited, notably at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool; the Serpentine Gallery, London; the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; and Chester Arts Centre, he worked obsessively, apparently oblivious to the wider art world.

In 1959 Dave Pearson exhibited as part of the Young Contemporaries exhibition in London, and followed this with an exhibition Astronauts at the New Arts Centre.

Shortly after his move to Manchester his work was based on the work of Van Gogh, having been inspired by seeing Lust for Life. He filled his house and studio with larger-than-life installations, including The Potato Eaters and The (Van Gogh) Bedroom. He then produced a series of nearly 400 drawings and paintings based on the Book of Revelation. By the 1980s he was working on another large series of drawings, drypoints and paintings based on English Calendar Customs and, later, a series based on the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance - In the Seven Woods.

...
Wikipedia