The Dooley Archive Project Launch with Leading Liverpool Artists
This exhibition marks the formal launch of our project to ensure the survival of his studio and raise his profile in Liverpool. You can find a lot of background to the project by clicking on the ‘Dooley Archive’ button to the left, whilst on this page you will see some sample images from the exhibition which is accompanying the launch.
Our main aim with this exhibition, however, is to publicise the project and ask for your help. How can you help? Well, there are five possibilities:-
You could become a volunteer and work on creating the archive, learn about film making or help us to collect oral history recordings.
If you knew Arthur we would love to include your reminiscences in our oral history archive.
If you have material relating to Arthur - letters, photographs, sculptures etc. we would like to include them in our archive. You don't necessarily have to give us your treasured possessions, we just want to photograph them and keep a record of who has what.
If you own one of Arthur's sculptures we may be able to display it as part our exhibition - ‘Arthur Dooley Resurrected’ in September 2008 at the Albert Dock.
Finally you might be able to make a financial donation to the project or offer us material help in some way.
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On display we have some works by Arthur – amongst them the two
bronzes shown here. On the right – "A Back Street Waif",
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and on the
left - "Satan".
A copy of this work is permanently on display at Birkenhead's
Williamson Art Gallery.
There are also pictures of some his better known larger works such as the Black Christ, pictured below on the left. This can be seen in Toxteth.
There are also large pictures of some of the Stations of the Cross, created in bronze for St Mary’s in Leyland in 1965. Pictured below on the right is an image of the fifteenth station, unique to Arthur. He felt that the fourteenth of Christ on the cross was too depressing, so he created a fifteenth of the resurrected Christ.
There is also a selection from the existing archive showing various aspects of Arthur's life - his childhood, his army days, his political and artistic achievements etc. In the centre below is a sample taken from these - The book he received when he was the subject "This is Your Life" from Eamon Andrews. showing Arthur with Brian Burgess.
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Leading Liverpool Artists
To accompany the launch of the Archive Project we have works from five leading Liverpool Artists all but one of whom knew Arthur personally and were influenced by him:-
Brian Burgess
James Cliffe
Carl Hodgson
Don McKinlay
Tom Murphy
Sample images of some of their work on exhibition can seen below.
Brian Burgess
Brian and Arthur were close friends in the sixties and seventies even sharing a studio in Woolton. There are several photographs in the exhibition of Brian with Arthur E.g. participating in 'This Is Your Life' - see the image above. or Protesting on horse back. Brian is an accomplished horse rider whilst Arthur definitely was not and apparently fell off on more than one occasion during the protest.
Brian’s sculptures are often wrongly attributed to Arthur the most notable being his "Christ on a Donkey” which used to stand outside St Nicholas’s Church at the Pier Head. There can be no such confusion about his paintings. Brian paints with a direct bright pallet most often about the Indian culture which is very dear to him. Arthur couldn’t and didn't paint or draw.
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Cat Amongst the Chickens
by
Brian Burgess
Acrylic
Height: 21 inches; Width: 20 inches;
£200
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The Pigeon
by
Brian Burgess
Acrylic
Height: 18 inches; Width: 15 inches;
£150
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God is Love
by
Brian Burgess
Acrylic
Height: 19 inches; Width: 23 inches;
£350
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Van Gough in My Studio
by
Brian Burgess
Acrylic
Height: 17 inches; Width: 24 inches;
£300
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Self Portrait
by
Brian Burgess
Acrylic
Height: 26 inches; Width: 20 inches;
£275
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Grey Owl
by
Brian Burgess
Acrylic
Height: 28 inches; Width: 48 inches;
£500
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Drunken Indian
by
Brian Burgess
Acrylic
Height: 28 inches; Width: 20 inches;
£400
James Cliffe
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James Cliffe earned his living painting portraits of the great and good in his
studio in the in the centre of Liverpool at the Bluecoat Chambers.
Whilst there he was often visited by Arthur and Brian where they would talk about art,
Liverpool, people and anything under the sun.
It was through these meetings that James came to paint the larger than life size portrait of Arthur that you can see on the right.
Carl Hodgson
Carl is the one artist here who was not involved with Arthur. However we feel that Arthur would have approved of the works included here which highlight some of the absurdities of modern political life.
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Ship of Fools
by
Carl Hodgson
Oils
Height: 40 inches; Width: 41 inches;
£750
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Your Turn to Pick One
by
Carl Hodgson
Oils
Height: 29 inches; Width: 41 inches;
£500
Don McKinlay
Don worked at the Liverpool Playhouse as a set designer in the 60s before moving on to teach art at the Manchester School of Art. He was a regular confidant of Arthur's and met with him regularly up until Arthur's death.
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A Good Drawing
by
Don McKinlay
Height: 11 inches; Width: 9 inches;
£400
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Saturday Afternoon
by
Don McKinlay
Height: 11.50 inches; Width: 12 inches;
£400
Tom Murphy
Tom knew Arthur in the eighties and even made a mold for one of Arthur’s statues. Arthur admired Tom’s smaller concrete sculptures from that period and did a lot to encourage him but wasn’t so fond of the later large figurative works like the John Lennon statue for which Tom is best known.
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A Ghostly Romance
by
Tom Murphy
Height: 38 inches; Width: 46 inches;
£2500
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Liverpool Street Corner
by
Tom Murphy
Height: 37 inches; Width: 43 inches;
£650