HOME   ~   EXHIBITIONS   ~   ARTISTS   ~   RECENT ACQUISITIONS

Harry Ousey
Painter & Printmaker
1915-1985  

Harry Ousey enjoyed the simple and unspoiled things in life – the wide expansive landscapes of Cornwall, Derbyshire and Southern France, where he could walk in isolation with his wife, Susie. On such strolls he would collect ideas for his abstract paintings, observing the shapes of drifting clouds, the patterns of dry-stone walls, the flow of water, and the colour and scent of wild flowers.

Manchester born and raised, Harry Ousey spent much of his early life absorbing the timeless landscape of the Derbyshire hills and moors; formative years which would prove a lifelong inspiration.

During the 1930s, a seminal Paul Nash exhibition would inspire Harry to leave his job of architect’s assistant to fully realise his own artistic potential. He  and Susie embarked on a tour of France and Great Britain, in pursuit of a bohemian ideal, following Harry’s determined commitment to be an independent artist. Throughout the next two decades, he rendered the full richness of the natural world before him with striking assurance, and his works would soon follow a logical pattern of progression- evolving slowly towards  heightened colour, form and texture of abstraction.

With compelling tonal and textural harmonies, the 1960s saw Harry at his most productive. With the natural landscape still most definitely his overriding theme, colour, form and texture would parallel a mood or feeling with gesture and scale.
By the approaching 1970s and throughout, harmony and simplicity were conveyed by floating lines of black ink, that in turn juxtaposed the subtlest colour wash.

He died in Marseilles in 1985.

More work available

Prices on Application

<< Back to list of artists