Joe Scarborough (artist)

Joe Scarborough is an artist born in Sheffield, England in 1938. He is most famous for painting humorous scenes of Sheffield life - everyday "real" images of the life and people of South Yorkshire.[1][2]

Life

Scarborough was born in Pitsmoor, Sheffield.[3] His career began as a laboratory assistant at the Batchelors processed food company.[4][2] He became a face worker at the Thorpe Hesley colliery,[2] and was inspired to paint by the contrast of the darkness of the mines and the lightness of the real world above the ground.[1] In 1968 disenchantment with the pits led to numerous jobs - labourer, municipal park gardener and a washer upper for some years, nurturing a dream to be a full-time painter. For years he pushed a handcart, packed with paintings round all his local pubs selling what he could in almost folkloric-like tradition, becoming at times like the characters he went on to portray in later scenes.[2]

He was married: his wife, Audrey, died in 2002 and he moved to live in a narrowboat on Victoria Quays.[2]

Sheffield Legend plaque

In 2008 he was commemorated as one of the Sheffield Legends with a star on the 'Walk of Fame' outside Sheffield Town Hall.[3]

Works

His paintings were popular and sold, sometimes for as much as £10 - an encouragement that led to his lifelong dream being realised. His first one-man show lasted for two years at the Attic Cafe near Sheffield's main bus station. One-man and mixed exhibitions followed which took the everyday scenes of Yorkshire life from Sheffield to Rotherham to London to San Francisco to Chicago and back to Sheffield.[1]

Scarborough's paintings now appear in several major collections and numerous works have been imprinted. The images, the humour, the friendships, the story telling is still the same.[1]

Sixteen of his paintings are in Sheffield public art collections, for example Sheffield Museums and Sheffield Hallam University.[5] This includes his largest work "Sheffield Through the Ages" which is 30 feet by 8 feet in the Weston Park Museum.[2][6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "The Joe Scarborough Gallery". Archived from the original on 5 December 2007. Retrieved 5 January 2008.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The Michelangelo of Ponds Forge". Yorkshire Post. 21 November 2015. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Star for Joe, the Pride of Sheffield". The Star. Sheffield. 4 June 2008. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  4. ↑ "Sheffield City Council - Joe Scarborough". Retrieved 26 September 2016.
  5. ↑ Joe Scarborough paintings, BBC Your Paintings. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  6. ↑ "Joe Scarborough, Sheffield Through the Ages". www.museums-sheffield.org.uk. Museums Sheffield. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
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