Spotlight on... Vernon Ward

Here is my bargain of the month. A beautiful Vernon Ward framed print... for just a quid!

I found it in Suffolk countryside, for sale in the on-site shop at an amazing converted barn we stayed in (more of which another time). It's my second print by the same artist.

Vernon Ward lived from 1905-1985 and was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists. Though he was born in London, many of his paintings depict Cornish seaside scenes. Vases of flowers were another of his recurring subjects.

But it's his Cornish works that most appeal to me, as it's a part of the country I have close links to. And you've got to love the feeling you get from looking at seagulls flying about somewhere you might rather be than at your desk.

Pictured above is the first print I bought. I had it displayed among the chaos that is my home office wall. But once I got it together with its friend, I realised the print had been rather lost where it was, and that the two ought really to be together. But where?

I'm not sure this will be their permanent home, but this is where they've landed up for now. I never intended to have a themed beach wall. But somehow it happened.

The new print, with its old friend, are on the same wall as another few cherished things.

The postcards are a set of paintings of St Ives. They ought to go in more substantial frames really.

Above is a painting my grandma did of a Cornish beach scene. It is painted onto tiles and framed. She had it hanging in her bathroom in her house in St Ives for many years. Apparently the blond boy in the foreground was my dad as a little boy.

The lovely ceramic seagulls were a present from my brother and his wife.

You can browse some of Vernon Ward's originals, all sold at auction, on Artnet.com Originals can go for £300 up to around £1000. The cheaper and easier to pick up prints, part of Ward's vast body of commercial output, were popular decoration for greetings cards, jigsaws, trays and more, as well as in frames.

And if you like Vernon Ward's work, a good source of quite a few of his prints is the always inspiring and ever affordable OK Corral, which gets them in frequently and currently has a VW trivet on sale for just a fiver. Love that shop.

Post by Kate