Carnforth station exhibition cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions

An exhibition of railway art due to have been held at Carnforth Heritage Centre has had to be cancelled because of lockdown restrictions.
Brian Wilson's book about his brother, The Making of a Railway Artist.Brian Wilson's book about his brother, The Making of a Railway Artist.
Brian Wilson's book about his brother, The Making of a Railway Artist.

The exhibition featured the paintings of Lawrence Roy Wilson, who had been the president of The Guild of Railway Artists for 10 years and also a Friend of the National Railway Museum in York for many years.

He had also been Artist in Residence at the museum on a number of occasions, as well as producing some of their Christmas cards.

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Roy died in February 2019 and this was intended as a memorial exhibition. His brother Brian also produced a book, The Making of a Railway Artist, which was intended as a support for the exhibition as well as making his work available to a wider audience.

This was published in November 2020 but because this was also during lockdown and, since all bookshops were closed until April 12, it has only been available online. It can now be obtained through Waterstones or from Barrai Books of Barrow-in-Furness, or through Brian himself.

Brian said: "The book features and ends with illustrations of an exhibition of his work that took place in 2016 to celebrate Roy’s 90th birthday.

"That exhibition was also held at Carnforth and was opened by Paul Atterbury of Antiques Roadshow fame.

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"Due to advancing dementia this was the last time that Roy knew that he was an artist and so represents the end of his artistic activity as well as the end of the book.

"I am grateful to Paul Atterbury who kindly produced the foreword to the book and I hope that the exhibition will take place later this year, when the book will be available as intended."

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