Ian Houston: An Easel in the Elements

Exhibition E-Catalogue

Ian was born in Gravesend in Kent in 1934. A talented musician, he studied at the Royal College of Music in London from 1950. Soon afterwards he began a part-time painting course at St Martin’s School of Art and found he could combine promising careers both as concert pianist and professional painter.

He began exhibiting in London in1956. A year later, while showing at the Rowland Ward Gallery, the wild life specialists, he met Edward Seago, a celebrity artist, equally popular with the man in the street and the Royal Family. Seago had recently returned from accompanying Prince Philip as friend and ‘tour artist’ on a trip to the Antarctic aboard HMY Britannia. Seago saw great potential in the young Houston and encouraged him (in the same way perhaps that Munnings had encouraged the young Seago). He persuaded Ian to concentrate on landscape painting, a remarkably unselfish suggestion as it was his own speciality. Ian tells us that ‘Ted was enormously generous and such a nice person. He used to give me a box of paintings to copy’.

In 1964 he moved to North Walsham in Norfolk, with his wife and family, where he taught music at the high school. With Seago as his artistic godfather, it was natural to gravitate to the county that had made the great man’s name and whose distinctive ‘flat’ landscapes inspired centuries of artists to subordinate land and man to its towering skies. Solo shows soon followed in Lincoln and Norwich, the latter with Mandell’s in 1970. The success of the Norfolk exhibitions allowed him to buy the seagoing Thames Spritsail Barge Raybel in which he sub sequently gained his Master’s Certificate. Apart from the pure pleasure in sailing, Raybel allowed him to immerse himself in the offshore atmosphere of East Anglia. The sea, weather and traditional sail in action added an enormous authenticity of experience and knowledge to the depiction of his subjects that so many of his followers now lack.

Ian, described variously as an impressionist or post-impressionist painter, is the last in a long line of British 20th century landscape painters that leads directly to Munnings and Priestman, although through his association with Norfolk painting he is the spiritual heir to the older heritage of Constable and the Norwich School. We are enormously proud to be associated with an artist of Ian’s stature, a great living painter with a page in British painting history secured.

24 October - 8 November 2019

Panter & Hall
11-12 Pall Mall
London
SW1Y 5LU

MAP

Monday to Friday

10.00 AM - 6.00 PM

Saturdays

BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

Sundays

CLOSED

CLOSED BANK HOLIDAYS

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Textiles and Oddments in a Country Market

oil on board

10 x 14 ins (25 x 36 cms)

£2,000

framed

Ian Houston (b.1934)

Sunlight After a Storm, Venice

oil on board

14 x 20 ins (36 x 51 cms)

£2,750

framed

Ian Houston (b.1934)

The Waterfront at Olympia WA USA

oil on board

10 x 14 ins (25 x 36 cms)

£2,000

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Sailing Junk at Stanley Bay - Hong Kong

oil on canvas

14 x 18 ins (36 x 46 cms)

£2,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

The Castle of Castiglione - Capri (In the Steps of Axel Munthe)

oil on board

9 x 11 ins (23 x 28 cms)

£1,650

framed

Ian Houston (b.1934)

Early Morning Venice

oil on canvas

20 x 28 ins (51 x 71 cms)

£4,150

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Drying Sails ans Nets - Honfleur

oil on board

11 x 9 ins (28 x 23 cms)

£1,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

A Glimpse of the Oxford Skyline, Morning After Snow

Mixed Media on Board

8 x 12 ins (20 x 30 cms)

£1,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

A Patch of Sunlight on the Thames Path, Mortlake

oil on board

9 x 11 ins (23 x 28 cms)

£1,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Evening in Tuscany

watercolour

5.5 x 10 ins (14 x 25 cms)

£875

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Sailing Barge in the Thames Estuary

oil on canvas

12 x 16 ins (30 x 41 cms)

£2,450

framed

Reserved

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

The Edge of the Wood in Snow

oil on board

12 x 16 ins (30 x 41 cms)

£2,450

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Midsummer on the Coast at Ravello

Mixed Media on Board

9 x 11 ins (23 x 28 cms)

£1,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

'Our Boys' on the Beach at Hythe

Mixed Media on Board

10 x 14 ins (25 x 36 cms)

£2,000

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

On the Golden Horn, Istanbul

oil on board

12 x 16 ins (30 x 41 cms)

£2,450

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

January Snow in Norfolk

Mixed Media on Board

9 x 11 ins (23 x 28 cms)

£1,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Fishing Junks a Macau

oil on board

9 x 11 ins (23 x 28 cms)

£1,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Contre Jour - Loch Shiel

oil on board

14 x 20 ins (36 x 51 cms)

£2,750

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

A Canal Side Market - Bankok

Mixed Media on Board

8 x 12 ins (20 x 30 cms)

£1,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

A Patient Fisherman, Thames near Lechlade

Mixed Media on Board

10 x 14 ins (25 x 36 cms)

£2,000

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Low Water at Chiswick Eyot

mixed media

12 x 16 ins (30 x 41 cms)

£2,450

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

The Slipway at Riomaggiore

oil on board

11 x 9 ins (28 x 23 cms)

£1,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

At Ap Lei Chau - Hong Kong

ink and wash

8 x 14 ins (20 x 36 cms)

£1,100

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

The Reed Stack, North Norfolk

Mixed Media on Board

14 x 18 ins (36 x 46 cms)

£2,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

Shade and Sunlight on the Thames Path at Mortlake

Mixed Media on Board

9 x 11 ins (23 x 28 cms)

£1,650

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

An Abandoned Quayside - Cheung Chau

Mixed Media on Board

12 x 16 ins (30 x 41 cms)

£2,450

framed

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Ian Houston (b.1934)

A Sailing Junk at Stanley Bay - Hong Kong

oil on canvas

24 x 30 ins (61 x 76 cms)

£4,850

framed