Ronnie Copas

 

Welcome to the website dedicated to the work of artist Ronnie Copas featuring galleries of his past and present works including his latest series of paintings drawing on his experiences as a boatman on St Michaels Mount.

 

 

Ronnie Copas
Studied drawing at Epsom School of Art and etching at Royal West of England Academy, Bristol. In a professional painting career that spans over 50 years, Copas progressed from his first one-man London show in the 1950s, through teaching, scene painting, graphic design and back to fine art. After a number of spring and summer mixed shows at the Passmore Edwards Gallery, Newlyn and the St Ives Group, Cornwall he was commissioned to paint a double triptych for the rood screen of a Cornish church. There then followed a succession of one-man shows in London's West End at the Portal Gallery, the subject matter being mostly paintings culled from his experiences as a boatman and guide for Lord St Levan on St Michael's Mount, plus countless mixed exhibitions, biennales and art fairs. His works now hang throughout the world, from Japan to the USA where they share wall space with Pollock and Nicholson.
A canvas, 'St Francis and the Wildfowl' size 5' x 4', was commissioned from him some years ago by the late Sir Peter Scott and the Wildfowl Trust. It originally hung in the Wildfowl Reserve at Arundel, West Sussex, but is now in a private collection in Munich, Germany. Copas was given an Honorary Life Membership of the Trust in recognition of his work. More recently Mr Robert Pennant Jones, a sincere patron of Copas's work and an aficionado of Shakespeare, commissioned a massive major work - The Poet and the Painter -incorporating a definitive scene from each of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays. On completion the painting size 10' x 8' was installed and unveiled in the Swan Theatre Stratford upon Avon. It later toured the country with the Royal Shakespeare Company art collection and was finally installed in the house of the patron in London, where it is available for viewing by appointment.
Source references for work: 'Modern Art in English Churches' Michael Day. 'The Innocent Eye' Marion Whybrow. 'PEA 2000' [Painters from Everywhere in Altea, Spain] Wolf Braun. [20th Century British] 'Naive and Primitive Artists' Eric Lister and Sheldon Williams. 'Portal Painters' 1 Eric Lister. 'Portal Painters' 2 Eric Lister.
'Adam and Eve' Willie Rushton.

St Francis and the Wildfowl

The Poet and the Painter

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