Arthur Spooner, En Plein Air Post Impressionist Landscape of Rural Derbyshire, Oil Painting

Arthur Spooner.
English ( b.1873 - d.1962 ).
Rural Derbyshire.
Oil On Card.
Signed Lower Left.
Image size 6.7 inches x 9.1 inches ( 17cm x 23cm ).
Frame size 10.2 inches x 12.6 inches ( 26cm x 32cm ).

This original impasto oil painting is by the Nottingham artist Arthur Spooner and dates from between the Wars.
The painting is presented and supplied in a sympathetic contemporary mount and frame (which is shown in these photographs) and behind glass.
This antique painting is in very good condition, commensurate with its age. It wants for nothing and is supplied ready to hang and display.
The painting is signed lower left.

Arthur Spooner, a Nottingham man through and through, was one of the city’s most famous artists, a man whose works provide an historical record of the area and its people.

Spooner was born in Nottingham and studied at Nottingham School of Art, now part of Nottingham Trent University, under Wilson Foster. He went on to teach landscape and figurative painting and was later appointed Master of Nottingham Art School.

Although Spooner was a versatile artist he is best known as a landscape painter, with an ability to capture the atmosphere of a place, Nevertheless, he also painted portraits and some sporting scenes, often with gundogs.

Two of his major works are “The Nottingham Boat Club”, which was a commission to commemorate the formation of the new club, and ‘The First Test Match- Tea Interval, Trent Bridge”, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1941.

The most famous of Spooner’s works is perhaps ‘The Goose Fair, Nottingham”, which he painted in 1926. This depicts a crowded scene at the Goose Fair on one of the last times the event was held in the Market Square, before it moved to the Forest. It was sold at Christies in 2004 for £218,000. The purchaser was Sir Henry Djanogly, and the painting is now one of the main attractions at the Nottingham Castle gallery, where is hangs on long-term loan. Although Spooner is known for an accurate portrayal of events, the clown is that painting is in fact a self-portrait.

As a Member of the Royal Society of British Artists Spooner was a popular figure and much feted during his lifetime. His works have been exhibited at the Royal Academy on numerous occasions as well as the Royal Society of British Artists, the Walker Gallery, the Birmingham Art Gallery and elsewhere.

Spooner was a major artistic influence on the city of Nottingham, teaching its students and recording its events. Indeed, apart from painting holidays abroad, his whole career was spent in Nottingham. His legacy is the greater because he was a founder member of the Nottingham Society of Artists and served as President from 1946-62.

Spooner was unable to work in his final years because of failing eyesight, and he died in Nottingham in 1962.

A BBC One programme fronted by Dan Snow in 2011 retraced his career and looked at his works housed in Nottingham Castle, Portland College and Welbeck Abbey.



This original impasto oil painting depicts a rural landscape, probably from the artist’s native Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire area. The view was no doubt painted en plein air (outdoors in situ). We see a green meadow, with a rough wheel tracks leading through an open gateway into another field, the colour of which suggests stalks of crops. It is perhaps harvest time and there may be bales in the fields. Beyond are farm buildings, including the gable-end of a red brick house. Along the perimeter of the field is a hedge and a number of larger elm trees. In the background, there is higher land, in a shade of pale blue and above is a wide open sky. The palette is blues, greys and greens, varied and pleasant.