Fred Cuming RA

One of the youngest painters ever elected to the Royal Academy (an Associate at the age of 39 in 1969 and a full RA in 1974), Fred Cuming has been the subject of many one-man shows. Now in his 86th year, he continues to draw and paint with his accustomed vigour and zest for life, and an obsessive curiosity about light and colour. Richard Holmes, in his masterly and sensitive introduction, describes how Fred belongs 'to the great descriptive tradition of English Romantic landscape painting which has flourished for two centuries since Turner and Constable. Essentially a visionary painter… he has developed the most delicate, painstaking descriptive techniques… what he really does is to re-invent the world through colour, it is both a recognizable place, which can be visited; and yet a completely transformed object of poetic intensity. His world feels as if it has been dreamt, or remembered from a dream, suffused with feelings that can never quite be named.' In this book, Fred expounds his ideas on drawing and painting. He explains his palette and how he works partly in the open air and partly in his studios. Remarkable thinking and writing by a painter who passionately wants to share his experiences and what he sees in the landscape, on the coastline, and in the sky, as the seasons change and the weather and light constantly vary.