Trevor Grimshaw was an English artist whose main subject is the northern industrial town landscape as it used to be.
Life and work
Grimshaw was born in Hyde, Cheshire in 1947 and studied at the Stockport College of Art from 1963 to 1968. He developed a unique style working in oils, charcoal and graphite to produce atmospheric, stylised images of the Northern industrial landscape, mainly in monochrome. As a child he had a passion for steam engines and trainspotting, which continued into adulthood; for example he made the journey to the scrapyard at Barry in South Wales which held hundreds of steam locomotives awaiting scrapping, and made a personal photographic record of the occasion, 34 photo images being used in his publication "Stilled Life". Much of his work overall features steam engines. He spent much of his working career at Manchester advertising agency Stowe Bowden Ltd.
Artistic career
Grimshaw exhibited widely in the UK and in the US and Germany. His work was included in the private collections of L.S. Lowry, Edward Heath, the Warburton Family and Gerald Kaufman MP., and he is represented in a number of public collections, including The Tate Gallery, Salford Art Gallery, Stockport Art Gallery and Bury Art Gallery. He illustrated The Singing Street, a book of poems by Mike Harding, and executed limited edition lithographs for Christie's Contemporary Art. He also did the title slide images for the early BBC Great Railway Journeys of the World series. Artist Geoffrey Key described Grimshaw, a long time friend, as "one of the most important graphic artists working in the north during the last half of the 20th century". While Grimshaw is most celebrated for his black and grey graphite portrayal of post-industrial Britain his portfolio included diverse other subjects such as megaliths, Stonehenge, quarries in North Wales, motorway construction and the solstices. Colour treatment was largely reserved for Cheshire landscapes, and pictures of Clarice Cliff ceramics. L.S.Lowry attended one of his earliest exhibitions, buying three of his major early works to hang alongside his small collection of Pre-Raphaelites. Grimshaw became a regular visitor to Lowry’s home in Mottram. In 1973 the North West Arts Association published Townscape: Trevor Grimshaw, a book reproducing 30 drawings. In 2004 a major retrospective exhibition was held at Stockport Art Gallery. In December 2011 viewers of the BBC programme "Flog It!" witnessed two large graphite drawings sell for £3,200 and £3,800 at an auction held at Adam Partridge's auction rooms in Congleton.
Final exhibitions and death
By the time of his death, in a house fire in November 2001, Grimshaw had become an alcoholic and a reclusive figure. He held his last show in 1997 in the County Museum and Art Gallery at Prostejov, Moravia, Czech Republic, his 50th show in his 50th year. Grimshaw's daughter organised a retrospective exhibition of her father's work, which took place from February to May 2004 at Stockport Art Gallery. In June 2014 an exhibition of his paintings, organised by family friend. Ceridwen Grimshaw recently discovered negatives taken from Grimshaw's 1970's 3 trips to Barry Scrapyard. Almost 100 of these images were unused and 90 will be exhibited at Stockport War Museum and Art Gallery from 11 May 2019 to June 15, titled "Trevor Grimshaw - Unseen Barry Photographs". Grimshaw's intention was to show the effects of Barry's salt air on over 100 steam locomotives awaiting scrapping.
