New Fine Art Canvas Prints from Stephen Warnes

We have today added an additional three fine art canvas prints to our collection from artist Stephen Warnes. The three chosen artworks are a good indicator of Stephen's range, style and subject matter - concisely summing up his love for light-filled landscapes, surrealist compositions and the incorporation of a social history into his painting.

Stephen has been painting from a young age, when his upbringing in Lancashire left to him wanting to capture the landscape of mill towns lodged deep in valleys surrounded by wild, windswept moors. Two of the new fine art canvas prints feature this Lancastrian background, with the amazingly detailed City of Revelation a scene in Blackburn and of course, the tragic, brave social history of Accrington Pals.

 City of Revelation - Fine Art Canvas Print - £105 - This amazing painting was something of a labour of love for the artist, being completed over a period of more than twenty years! The work was begun in the mid 80's, with a canvas approximately 1.5 by 1 metre in size. The planned geometric pattern overlay proved to be more time consuming that imagined and returns were made to attempt completion in the mid 90's, before final completion in 2003.

Sunset - Mote of Mark - Fine Art Canvas Print - £110 - The artist is now based in his adopted county of Cumbria, and spends much of his time painting the landscape within easy reach of his home, including the North Pennines, Lake District and in this case, Southwest Scotland. The Dumfries and Galloway coast along the Solway estuary is a hidden gem - yielding spectacular views like this one along its path. The Mote of Mark is a hill looking over Rough Firth near the village of Rockcliffe, and was the site of a hill fort in the Dark Ages.

Accrington Pals - Fine Art Canvas Print - £110 - Stephen was born in Accrington and was aware of the 'Accrington Pals' from a very early age. This is his tribute to them, and the millions of others like them who fought in the Great War. The Accrington Pals are probably the best remembered of the British battalions raised in the early months of the First World War. Groups of friends from all walks of life in Accrington and its neighbouring towns enlisted together to form a battalion with a distinctively local identity.



Approximately 700 men from the Accrington Pals went in to action on 1 July 1916 in the battle of the Somme. 585 men became casualties in about half an hour. Clearly this was never intended as a commercial painting, and quite rightly - any profit from this work will be donated to the Royal British Legion.



Blue sky shining on a perfect day,

A lark was singing, high above the Somme.

Brothers, pals and fathers lay

Watching that sweet bird sing in the quiet of the dawn.

And they all went walking out towards the howling guns,

Talking and laughing, calmly walking on,

Believing in the lies that

Left them dying in the mud,

And they're lying, lying, lying still -

The Accrington Pals.



Smoky town which heard the news,

Down in the valley, smoky little streets.

Houses quiet and curtains pulled,

All round the town a silent shroud of grief.

And the larks were singing still above old Pendle Hill,

The wind was in the bracken and the sun was shining still.

A lark was singing sweetly as

The evening fell upon the Somme.

7th September 2009