‘Black by Day : Red by Night’
The Work of Edwin Butler-Bayliss
01 April 2010 – 31 January 2011
The Coalbrookdale Gallery
The new exhibition ‘Black by Day : Red by Night’ is opening on 01 April 2010 at the Coalbrookdale Gallery, near Ironbridge, Shropshire and will celebrate the works of the famed Black Country artist, Edwin Butler-Bayliss (1874-1950).
Born into a Wolverhampton family of iron founders in 1874 Butler-Bayliss used his industrial heritage as the main inspiration for his evocative paintings. Deciding against a career in the family’s foundry but with no formal art training he began to learn various techniques of watercolour, oil painting, pastel and etching. He was given free run of industrial works and was a familiar sight collecting ‘visual notes’ for his paintings. A substantial studio was built in the grounds of the family home so he could concentrate on his painting.
This exhibition brings together a comprehensive range of his industrial art works including large scale oil paintings, watercolours and charcoal drawings. It is very fitting that these works are being displayed at Ironbridge, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. The images are very different from ‘prettier subjects’ generally produced by other artists of the period. They are realistic paintings, sombre in tone, smoke-filled, often showing struggling figures silhouetted against a dull, grey sky and landscapes ravaged with the grey bulk of blast furnaces and chimneys. The phrase ‘black by day and red by night’, was used by American Consul to Birmingham, Elihu Burritt, in 1862 to describe the Industrial Midlands because of the smoke and grime pervading the skies during the day and the red glow emanating from the furnaces and iron works that was seen at night.
Butler-Bayliss was greatly respected on the West Midlands art scene; he was a member of The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Vice-President of The Wolverhampton Society of Artists, and President of Birmingham Easel Club. He exhibited at various galleries throughout the region and displayed his work at the annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Art in London from 1899 until 1928. He was described by a reviewer in the Birmingham Gazette, 1911 as ‘the poet-painter of the industrial scarred country around Wolverhampton’.
The free entry exhibition is open Monday to Friday from 01 April 2010 until 31 January 2011 at the Coalbrookdale Gallery, adjacent to Enginuity. ‘Black by Day : Red by Night’ is a partnership exhibition between the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and Wolverhampton Arts and Museums
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