Frank Bellamy at Kettering exhibition ended.

I managed to get to the Comics Unstripped Exhibition at the Alfred East Gallery, Kettering previously mentioned a few weekends ago.  I must apologise for the blurry photos. I must get in the habit of cleaning my phone's camera before taking photos!

Paul Holder and I met Alan Davis - yes that Alan Davis! - on Saturday 30 July, more about this meeting another time, promise! We both went in to look around the exhibition, this being the first time I had been to the gallery, despite its history of showing Bellamy's work one way or another.

The gallery has two large very open exhibition spaces and all walls had artwork on them.

Biography of Bellamy

The biography is uncredited unfortunately but is substantially correct. It mentions Bellamy's call-up during WWII to "Auckland" - this being West Auckland, near Bishop Auckland - Deerbolt Camp to be exact. And it implies John [sic] Pertwee was a collector of Frank's artwork which is incorrect, although Jon Pertwee did write to say how nice the cover Bellamy did for the Radio Times January 1972 was.

Bellamy nearly takes up a wall

 One of the regrettable features of the exhibition was the labeling. I fully understand some fans might not want to be identified as owning the artwork, but some art were evidently prints, not originals and these were not differentiated. "Montgomery of Alamein" appeared to be prints, as did "Heros the Spartan" and the Disc Garth features. "David the Shepherd King" were originals. Bellamy photos were peppered around artwork and included the photo of Nancy Bellamy tied up as Lady Penelope for the Thunderbirds 6 film poster as well as a school photo - Bellamy is not identified. A glass cabinet displayed various magazine and comics in which Bellamy's work appeared.

Gallery Sales table and the right hand side of the 'Bellamy' space

Paul Holder who helped to set up a lot of the Bellamy artwork produced a booklet, with permission from John Morrow, using Paul's chapter from True Brit [Link to paper edition. Note the digital version is full colour and much cheaper - see below!]. The chapter is a biography of Bellamy with some nice accompanying artwork and photographs. You can still buy the digital edition of the whole of True Brit: A Celebration of the Great Comic Book Artists of the UK via Twomorrow's site (as outlined by John Freeman below).

From Garth: The Mask of Atacama (G182)

From: Garth: Bride of Jenghiz Khan (H301-303)
Owned by the Gallery

The three strips above are also reproduced in Alfred East Art Gallery: The Permanent Collection Guide, p.90. It also comes with a small biography (with a few unfortunate typos) but the guide also mentions Bellamy's involvement with the Kettering And District Art Society. It seems odd that the Gallery did not buy some of Bellamy's artwork which, in print form, were also on show here.

Various from Garth: The Wolfman of Ausensee

I enjoyed seeing the placement of oil paintings from the Alfred East collection alongside some comic covers, raising the perennial question of what is 'fine art'. Original art prices for comic covers are at a premium and in my head I was wondering which artwork I would take for a few thousand pounds, if they were for sale!

Placing original paintings from the collection with comic artwork

Overall, I have to say I'm a bit jaded having already seen a lot of what was on display of Bellamy's work, but it is so good to see his work being celebrated locally.

John Freeman has an article about True Brit and how to order high quality prints of original art by Bellamy and Colin Noble reviewed the exhibition for John's Downthetubes site.

NEWS UPDATE: Frank Bellamy Kettering Exhibition and unseen artwork

STOP PRESS@ See below for pictures of the Exhibition as it's assembled 

Frank Bellamy - Masai Warrior

The Alfred East Gallery, Kettering, which has previously run exhibitions of Frank Bellamy's artwork is due to include some of his work in Comics Unstripped!. The Gallery explains, it will be "where we look at the history of comics and graphic novels. The exhibition features the original artworks by Kettering’s Frank Bellamy, including some examples from Garth, Thunderbirds and Dan Dare".

The exhibition, runs from 9th July to 20th August,and will have a booklet for sale, produced by the Gallery from Paul Holder's expanded digital version which will make a nice souvenir as it contains images taken from original art and provides the brief Frank Bellamy biography he wrote for "True Brit: A Celebration of the Great Comic Book Artists of the UK" edited by George Khoury. See the whole book - now a collector's item -  here on Amazon, but I'd recommend, if you can't attend, buying a digital edition which is cheaper and also has more content in colour!

Frank Bellamy souvenir booklet

Information for dates and times was found on the Council's website, and not the Gallery's but this was only announced today. The event includes:  

Super Heroes and Heroines Family Fun Day - Wednesday 3rd August, 1-3.30pm Join us for a family fun day in the Manor House Museum Gardens dressed as your favourite super hero or heroine! Come along to take part in craft activities, trails, face painting and lots more!

Comic Strip & Character Workshop - Saturday 23rd July, 11am-1pm & 2pm-4pm Learn how to create your very own comic strip and design your own characters in this 2 hour workshop for children aged 8 and above. The workshops cost £5 per child, (£4 with Leisure Pass) and booking is essential; call 01536 534 274.

There will also be prints to order which are "printed on 300gsm heavyweight archival fine art paper to the original size (approximately 41 X 63cm)" Although the original artwork will not be on display - as to my knowledge it still resides with the Bellamy family - there will be the opportunity to purchase prints (such as the Masai Warrior at the top of this article and the lovely artwork of Nancy Bellamy, Frank's late widow below) via the Gallery and postcards of other unpublished Bellamy works as well of his Thunderbird 6 film poster.

I suspect the dates mentioned on a Facebook event are wrong as some of the events listed on the council website take place after the dates mentioned. I have let the Facebook owner know UPDATE: Apprently Facebook only permits 2 weeks for an event!!!].

Lastly here is a piece not seen by very many people at all as it used to reside in Nancy's sitting room. She was an exceedingly liberated woman of the 50s and 60s and she felt very proud of this portrayal by her late husband

Nancy Bellamy by Frank Bellamy

Thunderbird 6 film poster postcard

Thanks to Jeff Chahal for these pictures on the Facebook Events page

9 Garth strips; Disc magazine, Heros, 2 Thunderbirds and Radio Times posters

Circus Posters, Montgomery (?), David the Shepherd King and others

Bellamy and Doctor Who

I recently had an email that asked whether I knew anyone who could loan the Cartoon Museum some Bellamy art for a forthcoming exhibition. Good news, if you haven't heard already, the exhibition is now on.

Cover art by Paul Grist and James Offredi

I was privileged to be invited to the Private Preview and attended with a friend who contributed one of the pieces of art. I met the fantastically friendly Lee Sullivan (see his work here) who was so interesting to listen to when critiquing Bellamy's artwork and a fellow Mike Noble fan. And by now you will have seen his original art of all the doctors in one lineup (if not click on the link!) Thanks Lee.

I also bumped into another really nice guy. Mike Tucker told me he works on the special effects on Doctor Who. Far too modest - see his wiki entry and his website. We discussed various pieces of the artwork hanging on the walls and we both couldn't believe that some of the artists for even recent pieces were unknown. I casually asked him if he enjoyed his job. He answered quick as a flash "I get to build models and blow them up, yes, I enjoy my job!" Good to meet you Mike

Now before I forget who this blog is about, and before one of you says, Frank Bellamy didn't do any comic artwork of Doctor Who ........you are incorrect.

The Radio Times for 3 - 9  April 1971 had a panel of Bellamy's artwork - which would appear the following week

Radio Times for 3 - 9  April 1971

Then we got the Radio Times dated 10 April 1971 - 16 April 1971 in which he illustrated, in a special feature, the Doctor Who story "Colony in Space" with 2 full colour pages and two half page black and whites.

Copyright Radio Times

Scanned from Time View: Complete "Doctor Who" Illustrations of Frank Bellamy

However the two pieces at the exhibition by Frank Bellamy are not from this story and are illustrations which accompanied other Doctor Who stories. But who's (sorry!) complaining when the exhibition brief is stretched a little? It's always amazing to see Bellamy originals - and these two are in particularly good condition. I won't tell you what they are but would encourage you to attend not just for Bellamy, but for the great artwork by Lee Sullivan, John Ridgway (fantastic linework from 'Voyager' the graphic novel), Gerry Haylock (cover of TV Action), John Canning (TV Comic) and the fanatical fan of Frank Bellamy, Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen fame). This is a only a small list of what's at the Museum as well as there standing exhibition which includes Reid, Baxendale, Riddell, and many other UK comic/cartoon artists

Thanks for the invitation Anita

Norman

P.S. There are lots of reviews on the Net, but this one has some pieces from the exhibition and a review here