In MEMORIAM - JAMES REEVE, 1939-2024
With regret, the family of James Reeve have announced that James passed away at home on 10 May 2024, at the age of 84.
James was painting almost to the end, and remained emphatically himself in intellect and spirit until his last day.
A memorial service was held at All Saints Anglican Church in Dulverton on 21 June 2024.
Anybody wishing to leave a comment or memory of James, please feel free to use the CONTACT form. Personal messages to James' family will also be passed on.
OBITUARY, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, 22 JUNE 2024
James Reeve, who has died aged 84, was an artist who painted in a hard-edged, hyper-realist style and was as proficient in portraiture as he was in landscape. He was known not only for his exquisite draughtsmanship and sense of place, but also, from when he moved to Mexico in 1985, his gift for conjuring up imaginative worlds in which the real and supernatural are not always easy to disentangle.
The gallerist Jonathan Clark observed that watching Reeve at work in his studio brought to mind “the obsessive focus of the Old Masters. But the Masters in question are not such lyrical classicists as Claude Lorrain. Instead one is reminded of Bosch and Bruegel, Richard Dadd even.”
Bevis Hillier, who contributed an introduction to a lavishly illustrated study, James Reeve: An English Painter in Mexico, once reckoned that there were only two artists in England who qualified as geniuses, David Hockney and Reeve. In 1995, Richard Dorment in The Sunday Telegraph observed: “Wherever I go… I just don’t come across representational painters whose work I want to look at again and again. The one exception to this rule is James Reeve.” ...
LA RAZÓN DEL ALTIPLANO y HOMENAJE PóSTUMO, 29 AuguST 2024
versión en español and English translation:
To the English painter James Reeve (1939-2024)
Villa de La Paz, S.L.P. - The English painter James Reeve (1939-2024) had for years a cordial relationship with San Luis Potosí in general, and with La Paz in particular, when he decided to donate to Fomento Cultural del Norte Potosino, A.C., a collection of the best of his works.
It was through the intervention of the cultural promoter Ysabel Galán that this donation was made, which was quite an event the day it was inaugurated as a permanent exhibition under the name Portraits and Chimeras at the San Francisco Gallery in La Paz on October 5, 2012.
That afternoon a large number of people attended, boys, girls, young people, adults, etc. There were dances, music and a dinner hosted by James Reeve. He spoke Spanish very well. And yes, like a good Englishman, he was eccentric and had intensified that eccentricity with his long travels around the world. He knew how to respect Mexicans and praised them in his paintings.
He managed to get rid of that sense of superiority that some foreigners convey when they visit, especially the Mexican provinces, and he made efforts to, without ceasing to be him, be like us.
Here, in La Paz, he was received as a friend because he undoubtedly seduced his emotion and his taste for art, which is something that Mexicans are born with. It was very interesting: he didn't want to get something from us but rather offer us the best he had: his painting.
The friends he left in La Paz have commented that the bond between this town and him is now unbreakable. For this reason, due to the death of the artist that occurred last May and due to his generosity, Fomento Cultural del Norte Potosino, A.C., has prepared the posthumous Tribute that will take place on August 29, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. the San Francisco Gallery (Old Hospital of La Paz), Ocampo 1. The meeting will be formal and admission is free.
TrAVELS OF A PAINTER
The illustrated memoir of James Reeve
The Tablet
Country Life
The Jackdaw
Selina Hastings:
" One of the most extraordinary and fascinating books I have ever read "
