TALES FROM THE HILLS

(Ashmansworth and Crux Easton)

Three years ago, the Parish Magazine announced an exhibition of the work of George Bissill, the Ashmansworth painter. The show was called ‘From the Pits to Paris,’ and was to be held in Oxford.

That was good news. George had lived here for nearly forty years, painting the countryside. so we hoped to see Ashmansworth as he had seen it; in fact, most of us had never seen any of his pictures.

Just as we were wondering how on earth we could get to Oxford (a neighbouring city with no buses from Newbury, but which runs frequent buses from Heathrow!) the show was cancelled by Covid – so we still haven’t seen the pictures.

George Bissill was born in 1896, escaped from coal-mining and joined the army, only to have his lungs permanently damaged by poison gas in the First World War. He became a commercial illustrator, but it was his pavement art which first gained him recognition as a painter. In 1935 he came to live at Ashmansworth. He died in 1973.

There’s a charming glimpse of him in the 1930s: “George Bissill, with berry [sic] on head, gumboots and a sketch block, tramping about.” That comes from his fellow artist, Joy Finzi, when they bumped into each other for the first time. It happened quite by chance: George was going sketching while she was house-hunting, and she asked him the way to Church Farm. Some time later she went to an exhibition of his work at a London gallery. She found him “an unexpectedly good artist.”

They were next-door neighbours for nearly thirty years. We knew George lived at ‘Four Ashes’ beside Church Farm, and that he was a painter, yet he remained elusive. We knew Joy better: her informal portraits required a lively crowd surrounding the sitter, keeping them talking while she sketched; meanwhile, George might be out at some lonely barn, sketching in the snow.

We were lucky in our two artists: one did the people, the other did the place; but we still need that exhibition to learn something more of George, and to see the Ashmansworth he saw. He might even tempt us out to tramp this wintry countryside, in our gumboots of course.

 

Agricola, December 2023