Watergate Street, Chester
Pen and watercolour Watergate Street sketch. This is inspired by the Louise Rayner paintings of the 1800s, and by stained glass artist Trena Cox’s plan for a Watergate Street colour scheme in 1948.
Julie Colclough created this as an illustration for the Trena Cox exhibition in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester and it is now for sale in our Watergate Row gallery.
Trena was a resident of Watergate Street and is famous for her stained glass windows in Chester Cathedral and many other locations. She wrote “Could we not have a few washes of lemon and yellow or salmon-pink, with the woodwork painted a deep blue? In a Continental street the buildings can run quite gaily through all the colours of a box of fondants.”
Julie Colclough’s interpretation of the street exaggerates Trena’s concept. They both love Venice so Julie imagined some of the colours of Burano transferred to our own street in Chester. Certainly Julie’s ancestors who lived here in the 1850s onwards were used to far less exotic colours, so Trena’s scheme may have caused quite a stir in post-war Chester. Cowleys Cloggers (now Death by Tacos) was painted tomato red and grey, and the locksmiths was olive green and wine.
The central red brick building is the Julie Colclough Gallery incorporating our studio where Julie particularly enjoyed playing with Trena’s colours on our neighbouring buildings. Stained glass colours but in watercolour!
- Original watercolour sketch, framed and at a super price of just £325 (Frame 18.5 x 15 inches)
Visit the gallery or contact us to reserve, order or enquire about ‘Pen and watercolour Watergate Street’.
back to the previous pageMore paintings from our ‘Chester Collection’:
