This November yet again sees the eyes of the art world descend upon Edinburgh when the Edinburgh Art Fair plays host to 65 galleries of national and international standing and opens its doors to the 12,000 or so visitors expected for the largest event of its type to take place in the UK outside London.
The organisers of the event, East Lothian based Arte in Europa, are excited that this years event will prove bigger than ever before with a full quota of exhibitors already confirmed and a list of artists that is truly a “who’s who” in the world of contemporary art.
“Notwithstanding the plethora of successful artists showing, the fair does not solely cater for collectors of these big named artists”, Andy Naismith of Arte in Europa is keen to point out, “there is also a huge range of work from many highly talented artists just starting out in their careers. Picking up on these future stars is without doubt one of the best ways of starting ones own collection of original art, and the fair is without doubt the best opportunity of seeing the work of these artists alongside the current stars of the art world”.
With prices starting at just £75 and peaking at around £45,000 there is always something for most tastes and budgets at the Edinburgh Art Fair and this year is certainly no exception.
The Edinburgh Art Fair takes place at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange in Chesser and is open to the public till Sunday 21st November. Doors open at 11am daily. Entrance fee is £6 / £4 concessions with unlimited re-entry throughout the weekend.
Further information on the fair can be found at www.artedinburgh.com or by calling Arte in Europa on 01875 819595.
Original artworks by the great granddaughter of the world-renowned French impressionist painter, Camille Pissarro are to be shown by one of the exhibiting galleries at the Corn Exchange this weekend.
Lélia Pissarro, who is represented at the fair by Art World Gallery, was born in Paris on July 27, 1963, the third and youngest child of Hugues Claude Pissarro and Katia, an art-dealer. From her infancy until the age of eleven, she was entrusted to the care of her grandparents, Paulémile Pissarro and his wife Yvonne, and her interest in drawing and painting was nurtured during these years while living at Clécy in Normandy. Paulémile taught her the fundamental Impressionist and Post-Impressionist techniques that had been taught to him by his father and his brothers, and so began her love for figurative art. She sold her first canvas to Wally Findlay, a New York art dealer, when she was only four years of age, and before his death in 1972, Paulémile made her promise to retain her family name, to continue painting, and to make art her life.
At the age of eleven Lélia returned to Paris to live with her parents, and it was then that she had her first exhibitions at the Salon de la Jeune Peinture, where she was, in all probability, the youngest ever exhibitor. Hugues Claude, whose style veered towards conceptual art, took over for Paulémile as Lelia’s teacher, and consequently she practiced drawing on a daily basis.
At fifteen she took part in an exhibition at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris, and a year later, having excelled in a special examination, enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Tours. With her parents dividing their time between France and California, Lélia found herself moving between Tours, Paris and San Francisco. During this period she became dissatisfied with conceptual art and reverted to the family’s traditional creative roots, which distanced her from her avant-garde teachers. However, during the late 1980’s, as the figurative style once again became fashionable, greater public interest has been shown in her work.
While in Paris, Lélia taught art at the Moria School and studied oil painting restoration under Mme De Pangalleria at the Louvre’s laboratory. During this time she has had solo exhibitions in Paris, Lyon, Mulhouse and Rennes.
Following the tradition of her great-grandfather, Camille Pissarro, her grandfather, Paulémile, and her father, Hugues Claude, this fourth-generation artist made an important contribution to the recent series of exhibitions entitled Pissarro – The Four Generations. In 1998 Japan hosted the most recent of these, with a touring exhibition to five major museums.
