2010/163

Woolas Hall,

Norman (RWS RBSA SAS) Neasom (Artist)

This framed watercolour painting by Norman Neasom (1915-2010) is signed and dated in pencil on the reverse as 'April '54'. It is entitled 'Woolas Hall', and depicts a tractor and seed drill in the foreground with Bredon Hill rising beyond, and Woolas Hall in the centre. The scene shows the red clay soil of the West Midlands. Neasom drew much of his artistic inspiration from the farming landscape of his native Worcestershire, and after formal training at the Birmingham College of Art, he continued to live and work at Birchensale Farm in Redditch, where he was born.

1 watercolour

MERL 'Handwritten accession' form (Museum of English Rural Life) – 'Watercolour by Norman Neasom (1915-2010), // Signed and dated April 1954. // Depicts a tractor and seed drill in the foreground with Bredon Hill rising beyong - with Woolas Hall in the centre. // ... Purchased as part of the Collecting 20thc Rural Culture Project. // One of a number of Neasom works included in the Chris Beetles summer show, 2010. // www.neasomfineart.co.uk // References // See 2010/164 'Birchensale Farm Memories in Pictures' by Norman Neasom.', Collecting 20thc Rural Culture blog [Thursday, 19 August 2010] – 'Norman Neasom watercolour, 1954 // A Fordson Major and seed drill chug their way across the red West Midlands soil in the shadow of Bredon Hill. The date is April 1954, the title is Woollas Hall, seen in the centre of the picture, and the artist was Norman Neasom (1915-2010). // Neasom drew much of his artistic inspiration from the farming landscape of his native Worcestershire. Into adulthood, and in spite of a formal training at Birmingham College of Art, he continued to live and work on Birchensale Farm just outside Redditch where he had been born. His working life after World War II was spent as an art college teacher, first in Birmigham and then Redditch. Hence the innate authenticity in Neasom's farming pictures. // Much of Birchensale Farm has since been swallowed up by outward expansion of the Redditch suburbs. The farmhouse now serves as a community centre. In his latter years, Neasom produced a number of works recalling the farm of his boyhood years.'

West Midlands [region]

1954-04 - 1954-04