About

Bernard Evans worked mainly in oils. His subject matter was the visible world which surrounded him both in West Cornwall and in Central London. He was a figurative painter and an observer. Subject matter was important to him and a sympathy or identification with his subject being an essential element of his painting. He relished the use of perspective and the creation of the illusion of three dimensions on a two dimensional surface through colour and proportion.

He enjoyed the light and form of the coastal landscape of West Cornwall and the rich life and colour of the fishing port of Newlyn in an age when the duller colours of the fishing vessels, equipment and clothes of the Victorian era have been replaced by brighter colours with the use of modern paints and plastics.

As a contrast, London with its huge scale and diversity both of form and of life, provided him with the subject matter for a large series of works carried out in the period 1998 to 2007.

Bernard Evans was born in Liverpool in 1929 and went to school at the St Francis Xavier Grammar School before attending the Liverpool College of Art and then Camberwell School of Art in London in the mid 1950s. Bernard's first art teacher at school in Liverpool was Mr Van Der Put in the late 1940s. His biggest influence was from the teachings of Martin Bloch at the Camberwell School of Art in the 1950s. Bernard Evans taught and lectured for 20 years in Cheshire and Nottingham, and was Principal Lecturer and Head of the Art Department at the Mary Ward College of Further Education in Keyworth through to 1976. Bernard then came down to Cornwall with Audrey his wife to run Mounts Bay Arts Centre which operated for 25 years from their house in Newlyn. He worked from a new studio built in the garden of his old house through to his passing late July 2014 after a short illness aged 85.

He exhibited widely throughout his life and in recent years both in group exhibitions and in solo shows. He was a member and past chairman of the NSA (Newlyn Society of Artists).

Solo Exhibitions
• Connaught Brown 2004
• Carteret Contemporary (USA) 2002
• Newlyn Gallery 1989
• Plymouth
• LWT London
• Nottingham

Group Exhibitions
• Newlyn Society of Artists 1977- to date
• Campden Gallery 2005
• Trellisick Gallery 2000 to date
• Midland Group Nottingham
• Medici Gallery
• Plymouth Art Gallery
• RWA Bristol