Founding Member of the Arborealists. Member of ecoartspace Artists in action, in galleries, on the land, in urban spaces, and online. Ex President of the London Group.
Political artist and curator and a founding member of the Arborealists, Movement 1 for whom she created the name. Her work employs semiotic images, using real places or situations which represents similar venues or events. She became known in the late 70s and 80s for her iconic works about advertising:Several of her works were destroyed but ‘Children in Peril When Love Dies’1985 is recorded on the cover of Blue Bird and Other Stories, ‘What you Pick up First is Most’ Important 1984 was purchased by ACGB for Southampton City art Gallery and voted in aBBC interview as the most liked by gallery staff. She was the second woman President of The London Group. Member of ecoartspace Artists in action, in galleries, on the land, in urban spaces, and online.
Current
Early life and education
Born in 1946,Winchester, Beale grew up in an early 18th Century theatre, the premises of her father’s workshop. Joseph Vaux Beale was a master gunmaker who worked for Manton’s in Calcutta before settling in Winchester, where he held Royal Letters Patent for the Trusty Servant cartridge.
There is a report that from about 1923 to 1930 Joseph Beale worked for the firm, but he does not appear to have been recorded. He was previously with Cogswell & Harrison as a stocker, and after leaving India joined Hammond Brothers of Winchester.
In 1933 the firm’s shop was still at 13 Old Courthouse Street but the office was at 15-1 Old Courthouse Street. The workshops and storerooms were still at 1 Mangoe Lane. J V Beale was employed as an extra assistant.
As part of a longstanding family tradition, Beale went to school in Brussels but at sixteen from 1962-64 she attended Winchester School of Art, where she met her first husband, the artist David Troostwyk. (Troostwyk, David and Klassnik Robin R.K.) She continued to study psychology and philosophy at the Universities of London and Reading and Fine Art at Goldsmiths College. She continued her personal professional development resulting in her higher research degrees in CGI as well as supervising research degrees for professionals in art and design.
Career
1971 Beale’s career started in Summer 1971 a review of UK art in Art Spectrum at Alexander Palace reviewed in Time Out
1972 with a 3-dimensional one-person exhibition The Highgate Series at Camden Art Centre. Since then she has shown a clear progression from 3-dimensional and spatial works to predominately 2-dimensional lens-based images incorporating text.
1977 Doors at Camdens Art Centre,London.Also in 1977 her work started to incorporate trees resulting in‘Collected from There’, a series of sculptures and photographs about an orchard at the Angela Flowers Gallery, then in Soho .This ran concurrently with ‘Collected from Here’ at the Acme Gallery.
1978 hers was one of three one-person exhibitions: Newton’s Wonder composed of thousands of real apples as an installation at The Richard Dermarco Gallery, Edinburgh.
1980 She exhibited in Women’s Images of Men at The Institute of Contemporary Art in London,The Arnolfini in Bristol and The Third Eye, Glasgow.
1981 she travelled to Poznan in Poland to install ‘His Ears are Small and Neat’, ‘His Chest is Covered With Soft Brown Hair’, two multi-artworks shown at the Akulmulatory Galleria, Poland. One of these was later exhibited at Krakow Museum of Modern Art.
Kraków – http://omniacasta.blogspot.com/2013/04/mocak-mhf.html
His Ears Are Small and Neat, 1980.
Installtion shot of Baby Love.
1982 she again exhibited at Angela Flowers Gallery now in Tottenham Mews, London with ‘Baby Love’ reviewed by Waldemar Januszczak, then arts correspondent for the Guardian. The Emmanuel Cooper Archive also records a conference for gay socialist men and women, resulting in publishing ‘Indecent Acts’ in the 1980s including ‘Baby Love and other Works’.
1984 she became the first and only ‘artist in residence’ at Southampton City Art Gallery, which culminated in the exhibition ‘Blue Bird’, a study of the childhoods of artists.
1985 her Billboard in the Old Kent Road, London, Children in Peril, When Love Dies stopped traffic. It was later included in Graphic Agitations by Liz McQuiston, Phaidon page 18.
She continued into the 1990s,updating her billboards by producing video billboards and large installation formats via the GMI Video Screen in London’s Leicester Square with 11 mins on Leicester Square (2000) and Art School(2001)
1996 saw her film ‘From Wilson to Callaghan, Conceptual Art Practice from 1964-1978’ screened at the I.C.A included interviews by Ian Breakwell and Jeff Nuttall and resulted in sales including Tate Britain..The accompanying Chronology for From Wilson to Callaghan, Conceptual Art Practice from 1964 – 1978 is in the Tate Library.
2007 saw the retrospective ‘Reviewing thirty years of Conceptual Art Practice in ‘Blue Bird and Other Stories’ at the LCC galleries and in 2009 her desire to keep pace with the emerging technologiesculminated with ‘The Stations of the Cross ‘a permanent installation at the Church of the Virgin near Poitiers in south west France.
“A beautiful contemporary cross at Vaux”
A special mention must be made of the way of the cross which adorns the walls of the nave. It is the work of a renowned English artist,Philippa BealeThe pictures are colorful pictures of a traditional crossroads found in a church. The head of Christ and the main actors of the Passion were carved in white plaster. On these carved figures, the artist projected the slides of the 14 scenes, and finally the image was manipulated by computer to change the colors. Thus is given to the images the depth of a third dimension.
A work very well received by the inhabitants, blessed in 2010 by Monsignor Pascal Wintzer, then Auxiliary Bishop of Poitiers. The paintings show the human life of every day and the divine redemption that brings life back to humanity. A work that questions and gives to think in a church that one admires as a work wanted beautiful for a “house of prayer”.
From 2009 she began painting trees as part of her new polemic concerning the enviroment, resulting in an invitation to exhibit in 2013 in ‘Under the Greenwood, Picturing the British Tree’ at St Barbe Museum, the New Forest. Following this,Tim Craven, curator at Southampton City Art Gallery invited well known British painters to establish a new movement for artists for whom trees were a major theme in their work. The name ‘The Arborealists’ was invented by Beale enabling the movement to become an international ecological, art movement. The concept of the Arborealists was to avoid historical concepts through renewing the contemporary language of painting that owed everything to observation. Since it’s inception the Arborealists have held twenty exhibitions , Beale has curated five of these in major museums and art galleries.
2020 saw Beale’s most recent one person event ‘Imaging Trees’ a personal view of trees during ‘lockdown’at the Bermondsey Project Space.
Personal Life
Currently Beale lives and works in France and Margate, with her second husband, the writer Christopher Plato 34 She has one son, the performer and lyricist PRofit and no pets.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 Being With Trees, Curator, Gustavo Bacarisis Gallery Gibraltar.
2021 Being With Trees, Curator, Bermondsey Project Space,London
2020 The Arborealists The Castle Museum Taunton South West Heritage Centre
2019 ‘Evolving the Forest’, Dartington Hall, Devon,UK
Arborealists and Guests, The Art of the Tree
2019 ‘The Art Of Trees: The Arborealists’, Musee de St Croix Loudun. Commisaire, “Philippa Beale réside dans la Vienne :L’exposition rassemble des artistes de réputation internationale, une centaine d’œuvres, peintures, dessins, gravures et sculptures sont à découvrir. Parmi les artistes qui exposent ici, certains sont venus dans la Vienne en 2016 faire les croquis préparatoires aux travaux exposés. Dans un environnement aujourd’hui perturbé, la beauté des arbres est plus importante que jamais. Cette exposition présente un aperçu de la richesse du sujet.
2017 ‘The Art of the Tree’, Dortoir des Moines, Musee de St Benoit, Poitiers, France.
2017 The Art of the Tree, Bermondsey Project Space, London.
2015 Royal West of England Academy. 2013 ‘Under the Greenwood, Picturing the British Tree’, St Barbe Art Gallery and Museum, Southampton Museum Service, Lymington
2007 ‘Blue Bird and Other Stories, 30 years of Conceptual Art Practice’ by Philippa Beale, collaborating with Jane Humphrey, Graham Diprose, Christopher Plato, The LCC Galleries/Stanley Kubrick Archive
London College of Communication, Elephant & Castle, www.lcc.arts.ac.uk Friday 9 to Friday 30 March
BLUE BIRD & OTHER STORIES 1694 The first retrospective exhibition of work by conceptual artist Philippa Beale. https://www.inse1.co.uk/issues/inSE1-105.pdf
2002 ‘Art and the Spirit, The Stations of the Cross,’ Site Specific Installation, St Pancras Church, London with James Swinson and David Roft.
2000 ‘Real Bodies Virtual City’, Curator with James Swimson Outside Edge Artists Collective. First Group show, St. Peters Heritage Centre, London
1999 ‘From Wilson to Callaghan’, Video Viewing, Paper given at Conway Hall,Red Lion Square, London.
1995 The London Group The Curve Gallery, Barbican Arts Centre, Curator with Bryan Benge, Ann Jones and Michelle Hoffner.
1984 ‘Artists for Bandaid’ at the Royal Academy of Arts.London.
1976 ‘Sculpture and Sculpture Drawings’, Annely Juda Fine Art, London 1975 ’20th Century Artists’ Annely Juda Fine Art, exhibition 6 with Rothko, Allen Green, Christo, Michael Kenny, Anastas Bradzdys
1972 ‘The Highgate Series’, The Nostalgia Industry, Camden Arts Centre, London (First one person exhibition).
Selected Bibliography
2021 Being With Trees Beale P ISBN 978-0-9555510-4-8
2020 Being With Trees Beale P ISBN 978-0-9555510-3-1
2020 In Coversation by Creative Coverage Trees are Philippa Beale’s passion.
2019 Philippa Beale writes about trees…by art.earth , Our Events, our Exhibitions Dartington Hall
2018 Drawn to London – Within the Shadow of the Tower (2018 Plato-Beale Productions ISBN 978-0-9555510-7-9.
2017 The Arborealists -The Art Of Trees (Plato Beale Productions (in French and English) ISBN 978-0-9555510-5-5)
2016 The Arborealists The Art of the Tree (Sansom & Co 2016 Cultivation of Trees and Western Culture ISBN 978-1-908326-86-7)
2015 The State of Art Site Specific and Installation Part 2 @ Barehill Publishing ISBN 978-1-909825-08-653
2015 From Wilson to Callaghan, Conceptual Art Practice 1964 to1979 The Chronology recounting the history of artists network working in the UK during the 20th Century From Wilson to Callaghan Conceptual Art Practice from 1964 -1978, The Chronology. published by Central Saint Martins ISBN 978-0-9555510-2-4
2014 The State of Art Landscape and Portrait by Andy Laffan | Oct 1, 2014 ISBN-13: 978-1909825086
The State of Art Installation and Site Specific1by Andy Laffan (Author), Chris Hodson (Editor).
2013 Anderson, Anne (2013). Under the Greenwood, Picturing the British Tree. Sansom & Company. ISBN 9781908326300.
2009 Artist of the Day at Flowers Gallery since 1983
2007 Bluebird and Other Stories: The Art of Collaboration Hardcover – 20 Mar. 2007 by Philippa S. Beale (Author), Christopher Plato (Author), & 3 more
2003 The London Group various authors Essay The London Group Inside Out .Philippa Beale ISBN095452306
2003 Wilson to Callaghan – New Curatorial Strategies, @ Outside Edge eMagazineISBN 0905263073 2003 Strike – Review Art Monthly 261, November ISBN 01426702
2000 Public Launch Outside Edge Virtual Magazine, Brunswick House, London
Outside Edge Virtual Magazine No 1 – Art on the Margins, editor published by Wellhung Art Company – www.wellhungart.co.uk
James Swinson (2001) Political artist, Third Text, 15:57, 53-60, DOI: 10.1080/09528820108576942
Political Artist, Oxymoron or Tautology, Third Text 57 Winter, 200102002 ISBN 0-952-8822
1994 Women’s Images of Men, reprint from 1985, ed Kent S., Morreau J., essay, Images of Men Rozsika Parker (reprinted from Spare Rib No 99, October 1980) p. 54 Writers and Readers Publishing Co-operative Society Ltd, London, New York, 08631608-081 Catalogue Women’s Images of Men, ICA ISBN 0-90526 3073
1993 The Sexual Imagination from Acker to Zola, ed. Gilbert H., (p. 25) Jonathan Cape, Worldwide, ISBN 0-224-03535-5
PHILIPPA BEALE (W.Brytania) Jego uszy /19-22 październik 1981/
https://ownetic.com/news/2012/10/22/siec-sztuka-dialogu-fundacja-profile-warszawa/
https://rorschachaudio.com/2013/07/18/contradiction-disillusion-disinformation/
Graphic Agitation : Social and Political Graphics since the Sixties
McQuiston, Liz ISBN 10: 0714828785
1980 Women’s Images of Men, ICA publication, article published
Catalogues in the Tate Library
- The Highgate Series by Philippa Beale 1972 Beale, Philippa
- Exhibition of sculpture Beale, Philippa
- SPACE from the Quadrangle : (six artists from Charlton House Quadrangle) Woodlands Art Gallery (London)
- Space Studios, 8 Berry Street, London EC1 : Pauline Adams, Trisha Austin, Edward Baure, Philippa Beale, Savomir Blatton, Michael Buxton, Brian Catling, Anne Cloudsley, Susan Haire, Susan Hiller, John Kearne, Walter Lam, Barry J. Martin, William Mills, C Morey de Morand, Alison Neville, H-Dieter Pietsch, Paula Rego, Michael Roberts, Mark Rushton, James Andrew Ryder, Coleman Sunders, Kevin Sinnott, Rhonda Whitehead, Victor Willing Space Studios (London)
- Philippa Beale : Baby love! and other work Beale, Philippa
- Goldsmiths’ MA Fine Art Show 1987
- Artist of the day : 27 June-8 July
- Wilson to Callaghan : conceptual art practice 1964-78 Beale, Philippa
- The London Group : visual arts from 1913 : celebrating 90 years commitment to the visual arts Humphrey, Jane
- From Wilson to Callaghan : conceptual art practice 1964 to 1979 : a chronology recounting the history of artists network working in the UK during the 20th century Beale, Philippa