Exhibition: Sheila Fell – New Discoveries, Castlegate Gallery, Cockermouth

Five ‘lost’ works from Cumbrian artist Sheila Fell have been uncovered and are set to go on display at Castlegate Gallery in Cockermouth.

The exhibition, Sheila Fell – New Discoveries, combines the new acquisitions with six more from private collections to showcase 12 works from all three decades of Fell’s career, in oils, charcoals and pastels.

Aspatria-born Fell was regarded by L.S. Lowry as the greatest landscape artist of the age. The works, unseen and even unknown for more than four decades, were acquired from a private collection in London.

Fell’s work rarely strayed from the farms, fields and towns in her north west corner of Cumbria, from Aspatria and Cockermouth to Maryport and Allonby on the coast. She painted the earth and those who worked it, depicting rich brown soils, piles of potatoes, small groups of driven cattle, indistinguishable farm buildings and the terraced houses of her home town.

Castlegate Gallery, in Cockermouth, has been a champion of Fell’s work and in 2014 staged the largest selling exhibition since her death in 1979.

Sheila Fell – New Discoveries is at Castlegate House Gallery from October 30 to November 20, 2021. To view the artwork online, click here.