An art exhibition is being staged in memory of a popular teacher who gave up his job to become a full-time painter. David Hunt was 79 when he passed away in January this year.
He had spent the last 30 years painting landscapes of the Roaches, the Staffordshire Moorlands and North Devon after quitting his job at Westwood High School in Leek.
The work which he hadn’t sold during his lifetime is now on display until Tuesday, May 7 at the Nicholson Institute Museum and Art Gallery in Stockwell Street.
George Hunt, one of David’s six children, told StokeonTrentLive about his dad’s passion for ‘inspirational’ landscapes. He said: “My dad was born on June 9 1944 in Ashbourne Road in Leek, and spent a lot of his time painting.
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“He started as a full-time artist a while back, and mainly painted the Staffordshire Moorlands. We had frequent holidays to North Devon and dad would spend days walking along the coastline finding inspiration.
“He played rugby for Leek from a young age and got me involved in the sport. He had six children; three sons, me, Dan and Sam, and three daughters, Katie, Charlotte and Rebecca. He also had 12 grandchildren.
“Dad couldn’t walk up the street without someone knowing him, he seemed to know everyone. We had a gathering at Leek Rugby Club for him instead of having a proper funeral across two days during the weekend when he died, and over 200 folk turned up on the Saturday and over 100 on the Sunday.”
Nicola Hunt, David’s widow, added: “He gave up working as a supply teacher at Westwood in the early 90s to become a full-time artist. He moved into Challinor Mews opposite the old Wilko site in Leek, then moved on to Cross Street mill, then to a studio at the family home in Spencer Avenue, before finally having a home studio in Cheddleton.
“He held exhibitions in various places including Longsdon and Rudyard lake along with a group of friends – Jonathan Walker, John Broadhurst, Anita Hill, Chris Hunt, and Melvin Fowell. His last exhibition was in November 2023 at Rudyard Lake, and as usual, was very well supported.
“He sold almost everything he ever painted, only leaving a handful of paintings – such a great achievement. He painted the Staffordshire Moorlands but also wherever the family went on holiday, be it North Devon, Dorset, France or Croatia.”
His friend Jonathan Walker said: “The beautiful Staffordshire Moorlands was home to artist David Hunt, for decades it fuelled his creative imagination. It provided him with the inner restless drive to paint, a drive that never abated. David found inspiration in many places and subjects but the Moorlands gave that intimate sense of place and belonging present in so much of his work, we are taken to his landscape, his world.
“Deeply moved by what he saw, David was compelled to capture and make sense of the natural beauty around him in paint. Through his work you experience the sensations he felt; the warmth of the sun, cold, wind, stillness, shifting dazzling light, the movement of grasses, water and fast clouds.
“What he fought to express was elusive and captivating, he was obsessed, he returned time and again to the same lonely stretches of moorland, abandoned places and haunted lanes. He let these ancient places speak to him. He translated that raw experience on to the canvas and shared it with us all.
“This process of seeing, feeling, and painting mattered to him. Through it he revealed his humanity, his need to communicate. He cared, making art is about caring, leaving something of yourself for others to find.
“He relished the intensity of painting, up close with bold strokes, intuitive marks and smudges, layers of refinement and then the delight of stepping back and viewing the whole, thoughts, feelings and intentions realised. He had such quality of control, so skilful, he was a great painter, an artist
“David did a rare thing, he lived an artistic life with all its insecurity, doubts and frustration. It may seem reckless and absurd to pursue this desire to create and realise the ephemeral but through his single minded passion we see beauty and truth. Shortly before his death David said, ‘At the end of the day I just paint my response to my world. No more, no less’.
“Artists create and paint things others don’t see, so come and enter David’s world, feel the millstone grit of the Roaches, taste the peat in the air and watch the cotton grass dance. Experience the Staffordshire Moorlands through his vision and spirit.”
Donations are being collected for the Midlands Air Ambulance. The Nicholson Institute is open from Monday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm, with a capacity of 60 people per visit.
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