By NATASHA DONN news@algarveresident.com
Studio 21, a jewel of an art gallery set in one of Loulé’s oldest buildings, is about to embark on its last month of exhibitions before changing direction and becoming a nutritional health consultancy.
The Algarve Resident visited this stunning little gallery as it came to the end of this year’s annual retrospective of the work of its founder, Richard Carruthers Smith. For those who are interested and haven’t yet seen it, the show’s last morning is today, Friday, November 1.
Our interest came from discovering the gallery online. The story behind it is magical. Richard Smith – a former Rhodes scholar, best remembered in the Algarve for his beautiful naive paintings – started his professional life as a lawyer in Zimbabwe, in those days still Rhodesia.
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He was not the kind of lawyer one tends to find today – “preferring to encourage litigants to settle any legal wrangles or marriage problems in his office, rather than through the courts”.
Described as “an artist in a lawyer’s suit”, Richard concentrated on mosaics, sculptures and batiks throughout his career, only taking up painting after arriving in the Algarve from Africa in the late 80s with his lifelong partner.
He discovered the premises that became Galeria 21, and set aside a little space as a workshop.
“In the 12 years that he painted, he must have produced around 1,000 paintings”, his partner Burford Hurry tells us.
Forever non-conformist, Richard’s works were dictated by the frame that he had in mind.
“We would look for old windows and doors in the rubbish – or in old houses. Friends would ring us up, too, and tell us where to find things. I suppose you could call it painting in reverse order,” Burford, now well into his 70s, tells us.
But with Richard’s death five years ago, Studio 21 became less and less used as an art space. The only permanent feature, and one that will remain, is the annual retrospective of his work – enthusiastically supported by friends and former clients – which opens on October 5 every year (his birthday) and ends on November 1 (the date of his death).
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The plan now is to turn the gallery over to a friend with a health practice. But before this happens, there are to be two final exhibitions – one of watercolours and charcoal drawings by Barbara Mountford and art teacher Greg MacDonald, and the other of work by the Vale Judeu Evangelical Church.
The first starts next weekend, with the vernissage on Thursday, November 7 from 6pm to 8pm, and doors opening thereafter on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th, and then the following week, on 14th – 16th.
For more information, call the artists on 289 367 383 or 912 294 513.
The second exhibition runs over the weekend of November 29-30.
And for a look at the informative website, access http://rcs21.com
