Two Lives in Colour: talk & book signing
Friday 1 January 2019
Accompanying the recent East Gallery exhibition, writer and curator Ian Collins introduces his recently published book Two Lives in Colour, about the life and work of Fred Dubery and Joanne Brogden.
‘The painted world of Fred Dubery was all about warmth and colour – a bright pattern of life reflecting a private place of beauty, pleasure and merriment. Known from numerous solo exhibitions, and from regular showings at the Royal Academy and New English Art Club, the pictures are a record of joyful travels in France and Italy and, best of all, of domestic contentment via a long and happy marriage amid a visual feast, and a procession of amazing meals, in a lovely Suffolk setting.
Fred Dubery was teaching at Walthamstow Art School when he had a fateful meeting with fashion tutor Joanne Brogden. She had trained under Christian Dior and would become a pioneering Professor of Fashion at the Royal College of Art while Fred was appointed Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy Schools. Adding a large adopted family of former students, their life together was the heart of everything.
Fred and Joanne left a legacy for art and fashion education and the paintings richly illustrated in this volume – images technically so clever and so subtle – offer a lasting lesson in how to live.’
Ian Collins is a writer and curator. His many books include monographs on John Craxton, Rose Hilton, Joan Leigh Fermor and John McLean. In recent years he has presented exhibitions at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich, Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Dorset County Museum, Salisbury Museum, Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, A.G. Leventis Gallery in Nicosia, Benaki Museum in Athens and the British Museum.
The catalogue for his Sainsbury Centre exhibition Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia was overall winner of the 2013 East Anglian Book Awards and he has an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of East Anglia. He lives in Suffolk and London.