If you are a regular visitor to Bath's Victoria Art Gallery you may remember that at the end of last year city based artist Philip Bouchard had an exhibition there entitled The Bath Sky diary.
Philip's family is one rooted in painting. His wife was head of art at Downside School for many years and their daughter Harriet recently returned from Florence where she studied to become a portrait painter at the Charles Cecil Studios.
Next month Philip says that he and Harriet will be exhibiting jointly at the Old Guildhall in Bristol.
The Old Guildhall has been bought by property developer Trevor Osborne and he plans, says Philip, to turn it into Bristol's 'first five star hotel'.
In the meantime, while waiting for various planning permissions, he is opening it up to artists. Philip and Harriet will have our own room to exhibit in – a magnificent ancient Court Room – for most of September. Other artists will also be exhibiting in other areas of the building.
Says Philip: "Trevor has been collecting my paintings for 25 years now so, in part, it will be my work from his own private collection which will go on show. The paintings have been seen publicly before: the first time was in 2005 at the Victoria Art Gallery.
"The show was called the Surreal Spaces exhibition and photoghraphs are at www.bouchardpaintings.com.
"The new exhibition at the Guildhall will be very much about the fact that, on the one hand, my collection of surreal paintings was a kind of 'joint venture' between artist and a patron.
"I painted the pictures and my 'patron' made it all possible by paying me to do it … and over a period of 25 years which, really, shows a lot of commitment from both sides.
"On the other hand it will be to launch Harriet's work and to show that she is continuing in the family tradition but quite distinctive in her own way as she specializes in portraits.
"Her work can be seen on www.harrietdahanbouchard.co.uk".
The exhibition stars on September 7 and will be open throughout the month Monday to Saturday.
