Signed.

Inscribed verso "The Cleft in the Rocks" - this may be in The Peak District, near Gradbach, Staffordshire, since Freer often painted in this National park.

Excellent condition.

Image 25.5cm wide by 5cm high. Frame 43cm wide by 23.5cm high.

Freer is a watercolourist of distinction, specialising in landscapes and in miniature paintings. He exhibited in numerous mixed exhibitions (in Manchester, Stratford-on-Avon, East Anglia, Wales, and London), before having his first one-man show at the Tib Lane Gallery in Manchester in 1970; his first one-man London show, "Valleys, Rocks and Hills" , was held at Spink and Son in 1976. His miniatures as well as his larger watercolours are now held in a number of notable private and public collections.

I have four other works by Allen Freer on sale at the moment.

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Allen Freer  1926 -

Allen Freer was born in Blaby, Leicestershire, in 1926 and attended Alderman Newton's Boys' School in Leicester, where in the Sixth Form he registered as a Conscientious Objector, subsequently serving in the Friends' Ambulance Unit until the Unit closed in 1946. From 1946 until September 1947 he served as a hospital orderly at Leicester Royal Infirmary. In September 1947 he took up a place at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, to read English.

Freer's acquisition of artwork as a teaching resource ran alongside his own passion for collecting art. While still at school himself, he had developed an early enthusiasm for lino cuts and wood-engraving; when he was in his twenties he also became interested in lithography, and it was at this time that he bought his first original lithograph, by Vanessa Bell; he was subsequently given prints by Edward Bawden and William Scott as gifts, and these formed the nucleus of his collection. Over the years, he amassed a collection of prints (including lithographs, engravings on wood and stone, wood cuts, lino cuts, dry point and etchings) which was reasonably representative of the graphic work produced in England from the beginning of the twentieth century, acquiring prints by artists such as Eileen Agar, Edward Bawden, Edward Gordon Craig, John Craxton, Terry Frost, Eric Gill, Augustus John, David Jones, Lynton Lamb, Vincent Lines, Henry Moore, John and Paul Nash, John Piper, Eric Ravilious and Graham Sutherland. Many of his prints first made their appearance as illustrations for books published by private presses such as Ashendene, Nonesuch and Gregynog, reflecting Freer's enduring interest in the art of illustration and the interplay between text and image; he credits Douglas Cleverdon (of Clover Hill Editions) with his initiation into 'a world where books and prints met'.  He also went on to acquire twentieth-century work in other media, such as watercolours, drawings and oils, and gradually built up an art collection of national importance. He developed a particular interest in certain genres or media such as topographical watercolour and landscape painting (both representational and abstract) and war art (he collected work by official war artists and by those whose paintings reflected their response to war, including Albert Richards, Thomas Hennell, John and Paul Nash, John Piper, and Edward Bawden). His interest in arts and crafts is also reflected in his acquisition of pieces made by well-known potters such as Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie, Michael Cardew and Lucie Rie, and of quality handmade furniture by traditional craftspeople.

 Freer acquired many of his paintings and prints direct from their creators, and he developed good relationships with a number of well-known artists - corresponding with and visiting artists such as John Nash, Ivon and John Hitchens, Leonard McComb and Keith Vaughan. He also helped to promote the work of artists he admired by organizing exhibitions (e.g. exhibitions of Edward Bawden's and Winifred Nicholson's work at Manchester Cathedral), lending works to galleries, and selling work on behalf of artists.

 Through his work for Manchester Education Committee he also established friendships with poets and writers such as Ronald Blythe and Phoebe Hesketh, and (as with artists) he helped to promote writers whose work he particularly valued. In 1985 he arranged the publication of poems by Hesketh in the collection A ring of leaves, published by the Hayloft Press to mark the poet's 75th birthday; Freer provided illustrations for this volume himself, and he also went on to illustrate Hesketh's 1989 volume Netting the sun: new and collected poems, with an introduction by Anne Stevenson (Enitharmon). He arranged the Hayloft Press publication in 1987 of Fifteen poems by the rural writer and poet H.J. Massingham (1888-1952). He also provided drawings for the autobiography of T.R. Henn, Five arches with 'Philoctetes' and other poems (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1980); Henn had been Freer's senior tutor at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. As indicated by the success of his work as an illustrator, Freer is himself a watercolourist of distinction, specialising in landscapes and in miniature paintings. He exhibited in numerous mixed exhibitions (in Manchester, Stratford-on-Avon, East Anglia, Wales, and London), before having his first one-man show at the Tib Lane Gallery in Manchester in 1970; his first one-man London show, Valleys, rocks and hills , was held at Spink and Son in 1976. His miniatures as well as his larger watercolours are now held in a number of notable private and public collections.