The many faces of Arthur Berry

HISTORIAN MERVYN EDWARDS REFLECTS ON THE POTTERIES’ CREATIVE COLOSSUS AND HIS CENTENARY COMMEMORATIONS

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PAINTER, poet, playwright, raconteur... Arthur Berry was a creative colossus who crafted images on canvas or in print that grew out of the consciousness of the people on the streets only to be reflected back at them through a strange and mind-bending mirror process.

As the National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported Arthur Berry 100 centenary celebrations continue, I’ve had opportunity to speak to a good number of people with something to say about the Smallthorne-born artist’s observational powers - the peculiar creative alchemy that fashioned Dulcie Potts, Lanky Fred and Shanghai Lil.

To be truthful, Arthur's paintings are not everyone’s cup of tea, while his writing may be too earthy for some tastes. His book, A Three and Sevenpence Halfpenny Man contains references to bodily functions and the more stomach-turning aspects of working class life, while I am told that a little project that was in development before his death was entitled Dog Muck Wars. Yet his work is celebrated for its authentic portrayal of the weed-sprouting cobbled backs, sludgy waste ground and grimy coalhouses that were legion in the industrial Potteries.

However, back to those interesting folk whose views I have been canvassing. Amanda Bromley, director of Barewall Art Gallery in Burslem - which is home to the largest collection of Berry's work - has good reason to be grateful to Berry, who died in 1994.

She informs me: “When my (now) wife Paula and I started Barewall Gallery in 2010, we wondered how to get the public interested in the new venture — especially as I had previously run a web development company. So we began to talk to the press and to network so that people knew us on the art scene.