Ray’s capturing Tyne’s history on canvas
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST...Ray Goldsbrough also has seascapes among his repertoire.
AS a young boy, one of Ray Goldsbrough’s pleasures was to cycle across from his home on Wearside to the Tyne.
It was the 1950s, the river still full, as it was in those days, of cargo ships, tankers, tugs and their like. With his Ian Allan’s reference books under his arm – the go-to publisher then, as now, for the transport enthusiast – he’d soak up the sights.
“I’d come through with friends and a cousin and just spend the day ship-spotting,” he says.
All these years later, the passion is still there, albeit the tugs he has painted thus far – the George V, Gt Emperor, Beamish etc, copied from photographs, their liveries meticulously researched – belong to a vanished era.
And what a talking point they prove among old river hands who chance on Ray’s work at The Picture Framer & More in Westoe Road, Shields, where owner Julie Stubbs gives artists, photographers and creative groups the chance to display and sell their pieces.
It’s a different slant to his usual work, one that many people may not as yet be aware of.
Because ‘the usual,’ and what he has made his name in, is commissions for spectacular motor-sports paintings for publishers etc specialising in the arenas of Formula 1, Superbike and similar. In the past, his work has been signed by the likes of Valentino Rossi, the MotoGP champ.
But trying to broaden the audience for this other aspect of his painting has hitherto proved difficult, because of a lack of proper exhibition space.
“I’ve been trying for the last few months to get an exhibition somewhere but nobody is interested,” says the 69-year-old
“People who don’t know me probably think that I only paint bikes or cars. I’m trying to get away from that perception.”
In fact he also paints lovely seascapes of the front at Shields, and of other coastal locations and landscapes as far up as Northumberland. And then there are the tugs and ships.
Although he now lives in Mowbray Road in Shields, the former graphic artist grew up in Southwick, at Sunderland, and thus in close proximity to shipyards such as Austin and Pickersgill’s.
His late father, Ronnie, worked for JL Thompson’s, which was on the site of what is now the National Glass Centre. The painting seen here of a ship lying at Manor Quay is in memory of his dad.
“So I was brought up with ships,” he says.
But there was to be no question of son following father.
“I originally thought of being a joiner in the yards but my dad didn’t want that for me.”
Having always drawn as a child – “ As a kid, I was never without a pencil in my hands” – he ended up going to art college instead. He subsequently spent more than 30 years working for various companies in Newcastle, eventually retiring early, when computers and its associated technology began to change the world of graphic art.
He is happy to take commissions for his landscape and ship paintings and – knowing that not everyone has the space to hang a large original -– can work to size.
And on the afternoon when we took these pictures on the seafront at Shields, a day of the most beautiful wintry clarity, who wouldn’t be tempted?
* Ray can be contacted on 422 2635 or e-mail: artbyray@ymail.com
Also visit www.thepictureframerandmore.co.uk
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