Peter Le Vasseurs latest painting, Tree of Life, commisssioned by the Guernsey Museum and Art Gallery will be the focal point of a retrospective exhibition of Peters work. Many major ecology and conservation paintings will be featured and limited edition prints, including Echoes of Liverpool, his most recent print, featuring the Beatles.
Guernsey Museums & Galleries is a service provided by the government of the
(British) Channel Island of Guernsey. The service is run by a Heritage
Committee, which also administers the Island Archives Service, together with
the listing and protection of historic buildings and sites, including shipwrecks.
Peter le Vasseur was born in Guernsey in 1938. He and his parents left as
refugees to England, prior to the occupation of all the Channel Islands by
Nazi Germany.
His artistic education started when in 1951, aged 13, he won a scholarship
to Harrow Art College. He had his first exhibition in 1963 at the Portal
Gallery in Mayfair, London. This was a two-man show entitled
Phantasmagoria. Peter exhibited and sold all 15 of his paintings.
This first showing led to a further 5 one-man shows at the Portal over the
next 10 years. However Peter really hit the popular headlines of the day
when the Beatles purchased his painting of them, dressed in Victorian
sailor suits and playing electric guitars... This was followed by an invitation
to contribute to the book THE BEATLES ILLUSTRATED LYRICS which went
on to sell 3.5 million copies. Fellow contributors were David Hockney, Allen
Jones, Erte, David Bailey and Sir Eduardo Paolozzi.
In 1969, David Puttnam (now Lord Puttnam) acquired a commission for
Peter to produce a series of paintings for The Sunday Times and The
National Archive of a HISTORY OF CINEMA.
In 1975 he decided to return to Guernsey with his wife Linda, where he
now works in a cottage, tucked away in the country lanes of St. Pierre du
Bois. In 1993 he was the first artist to win the Artists Fellowship Award
from the EARTHWATCH SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATION, the prize was to visit
and document the fauna and flora of the disappearing rain forests of
South America.
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