On Wednesday 25th January the Watershed in Hereford was packed to hear the presentation by Robin Thorndyke on the famous local artist and child prodigy Brian Hatton. Robin has identified and then photographed the landscapes and farming scenes that Brian Hatton painted nearly 100 years earlier. The evening was very entertaining as Robin had many interesting stories and anecdotes about Brian Hatton and about his own investigative journey to match paintings to locations and the people he met along the way. These stories were illustrated with Robin’s own contemporary photographs and Brian Hatton’s paintings, of which 1,400 are stored in the Herefordshire Council Resource Centre in Friar Street. The event was hosted and organised by Hereford Civic Society (www.herefordcivicsociety.org.uk)
Herefordshire Council has a fantastic collection of Brian Hatton’s work which has been tucked away since the closure of The Hatton Gallery in Churchill Gardens many years ago. Only now are some of these paintings once again being made available for the public to see upstairs in the Museum in Broad Street.
The fact that many of the landscapes remain unchanged is to be celebrated and it is surprising that the Council haven’t made more of the collection and linked it to the Breinton Tourist Cycle route which passes through the areas of Warham and Breinton, captured in art by the young Brian Hatton as he walked or rode along those same country lanes little changed by time. As Robin Thorndyke pointed out, Brian Hatton died at the age of 28 in the First World War and so was outlived by Monet and Renoir, who were his contemporaries. If he had lived would Herefordshire now be celebrated like the locations in France captured in paint by those French artists. Sadly for future generations, if the Hereford Relief Road is approved, the living landscapes which inspired Brian Hatton will be buried and lost from sight forever, as the proposed route passes directly through that area. Let us hope that Councillors who, by visiting Brian Hatton’s paintings and appreciating, as Brian did, the fantastic rural heritage on the doorstep of our Cathedral city, reconsider the future plans for Hereford and instead of destroying these beautiful assets celebrate and promote them.
It also makes one think that if there is so much of our money in the Herefordshire Council coffers or available to borrow for link roads, relief roads and bypasses in Herefordshire, could the council not spare some of this money for a new art gallery and library (promised now for nearly 20 years in Hereford but now abandoned). I am sure that such a building could also combine a learning resource for the higher education ambitions Herefordshire Council have for Hereford City. If the building was well designed and located it could link with the existing arts resource at the Courtyard and the Art College and could also provide an archive storage for historic records. This building could be another jewel in the centre of Hereford and a significant tourist attraction for our area. It might be a better reason for people to come to Hereford rather than to rely on a new retail quarter at a time when retail is not the fashion it once was. Instead let Hereford celebrate its talent; its landscapes and the fact that it can be different and a better place for that.
