Val Archer

Early Years

Val Archer has always painted. From the age of eight her subject matter was invariably the flowers and produce that her parents grew in their garden in Northamptonshire. Her workspace was a kitchen table which she shared with her mother, an excellent cook, and her props were the everyday objects of a simple and loving country home. 

At Northampton High School for Girls she drew and painted every day and her teachers encouraged her interest in art. She also attended the classes run at the local art school by painter Henry Bird whose passionate belief in drawing as the cornerstone of art and in the unsurpassed examples of the Italian Old Masters was inspirational. His classes became legendary. Bird believed that sound craftsmanship was the springboard for everything else.

Archer obtained her BA at Manchester College of Art & Design before attending the Royal College of Art where she graduated with an MA and won the Anstruther Prize for Painting. Norman Stevens, who had trained originally alongside David Hockney at Bradford College of Art, was her head of painting at Manchester. Interwoven with the many facets of Stevens’ powerful and charming personality and his skill as a painter and printmaker, was a 'northern work ethic' that had a positive influence on many of his students.

Archer's tutors at the Royal College included Sir Peter Blake, Carel Weight, Sandra Blow, Sir Roger de Grey and Ruskin Spear. It was at the RCA that the skill and beauty of her distinctive and meticulous still lives were first recognised by collectors and galleries. During the early part of the 1970s she showed with Basil Jacobs in London.

First Solo Exhibition

Val Archer’s paintings have always appealed to both European and North American audiences. In 1975 the long-established Kunsthaus Buhler in Stuttgart was the first gallery to stage a major one-person show of her oil paintings.

This was a success; the art critic of Stuttgarter Zeitung wrote “There is a magical quality in the objects she paints. In their silence they have real humanity that is expressed in a timeless way”.

Fischer Fine Art

Following in the footsteps of his father, who co-founded Marlborough Fine Art, Wolfgang Fischer established a highly influential gallery in London’s St James’s in the early 1970s. Archer exhibited here from 1979 to 1981. Fellow gallery artists included Ben Johnson, Brendan Nieland, David Tindle, Michael Sandle and Lucy McKenzie. 

The Tate Gallery

Val Archer was the co-creator of the Tate’s award-winning 1982 exhibition Paint and Painting about the history of art materials and of colour and technique in painting. As well as a major exhibition in the gallery, over 60,000 people were tutored in painting, materials and techniques in two large, specially designed pavilions on the lawns of Tate Britain. 

The exhibition utilised Archer’s experience as a visiting lecturer at various art schools over the previous eight years. These included Wolverhampton and Lanchester Polytechnics; Winchester; Cheltenham; Cardiff; Sheffield; Chelsea and Goldsmiths Schools of Art. She continued teaching part-time until 1987.

The Netherlands

Robert Noortman, the influential Dutch art dealer and founder of the Maastricht Art Fair, approached Archer in the late 1980s to show at his gallery in the Netherlands. 

A major force in the market for Old Master and Impressionist paintings, he saw in her work exacting patience to create a freshness and brilliance that had a parallel with the early 17th-century Dutch masters.

Her solo exhibitions at Noortman, Masstricht, at the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s sold out and were and critically acclaimed. 

The 1990’s

In 1972 the leading auction house, Christie’s International, opened several commercial art galleries around Britain. Val Archer became one of their main artists and CCA staged regular solo exhibitions of her watercolours in the 1990’s.

During this time her work was included in the Royal Academy’s summer exhibitions.

Italy

The art of the Italian Renaissance has influenced Val Archer’s paintings throughout her professional life. Her first visit to Italy was in 1978 to see the work of the masters. Every year thereafter she was in the country three or four times a year to study paintings, sculpture, architecture and mosaics. 

The work of Piero della Francesca was the focus of one of her early visits. In Tuscany she stayed in the Etruscan hill-top town of Cortona near where she would establish her Italian studio years later.  

In 1999, at the invitation of the painter, sculptor and print maker, Joe Tilson and his wife, the sculptor Jos Tilson, Archer visited their house and studio near Cortona, Tuscany. 

A year later she purchased a property nearby and began renovating it. In 2002 a purpose-built studio, constructed by the same Italian builder who had built the Tilson’s studio, was ready for her to use. Ever since she has spent the summer and autumn months working there taking inspiration from the country’s art and architecture, its natural beauty, its history and the everyday objects and traditions associated with the Italian way of life. 

The Painter & the Cook

Food, especially fruit and vegetables, have always been a feature of Archer’s paintings. In the 1970’s she was commissioned to produce two illustrated books about apples and berries for the British, Dutch and US markets. They proved to be best sellers. Paintings and illustrations for food magazines, including BBC Good Food, followed and for several years she also illustrated the weekly food pages of the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

Her growing interest in Italian culture then led to a partnership with the leading Italian food writer Anna del Conte to create a book about the cuisine of the country’s little-known regions. 

Published by Conran Octopus under their joint names the book The Painter, The Cook and the Art of Cucina was, and still remains, a totally original food book. 

“For the first time here is a title that uses original paintings - over 100 rich oils by a leading painter … a lavish volume which can only be described as a feast for the senses”. 

Exhibitions of the paintings were held in London and Milan in 2007.

Chris Beetles Gallery

In recognition of her position as a distinctive voice in contemporary still life painting this leading London gallery began representing her in 1998.  

A close and exclusive association developed and continues to-date with regular exhibitions of her latest paintings at its St James’s gallery. Examples of work for sale can be viewed at 8 & 10 Ryder Street and on-line @ www.chrisbeetles.com.