Peter Darach (1940-2023) - A process of Individuation: Paintings & Works on Paper

30 October - 21 November 2025 
Overview
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 Brooke-Walder Gallery is pleased to announce the upcoming retrospective of Peter Darach (1940-2023). Born in 1940 in the village of Spondon in Derbyshire,  he spent his early days roaming around with his dog Raq - "catapult, dog, knife, matches, what more could a boy want?" he said of his childhood. 

Darach  studied at the Royal College of Art in the early sixties. During this time, Darach was included in the John Moores Painting Prize of 1963 along side Roger Hilton (1911-1975). He participated in 2 group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, in 1965 and 1979. The latter, Narrative Paintings: Figurative Art of Two Generations, included Peter Darach, Ken Kiff and Timothy Hyman as part of the generation of emerging artists and Ron Kitaj, Howard Hodgkin and Michael Andrews as established artists. He taught in various art schools but in 1969 "gave up a well-paid job" in order to paint full time.

 

Darach's figurative works are characterised by their large scale, charcoal washes and intense surges of colour.  His work conveys a sense of all-encompassing urgency as faces emerge and dance across the scene.  There are parallels between Darach and Paula Rego (1935-2022), in so much that their work carries the sense of caricatures and fantasy with an underlying sense of injustice. After marrying for a second time, he lived on the Isle of Skye with his wife Anne and his two boys.  Following his wife's death in 1983, Peter moved to London with his children, where he remained for  the next 40 years, painting and drawing.

 

EXHIBITIONS

  • 2017 Peter  Darach, Megan Piper, London
  • 2016 Inside Out, Castleford Gallery, Manchester *
  • 1997 Jerwood Drawing Prize, (award) *
  • 1995 John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (award) *
  • 1983 Peter Darach: Me and My Family, Artspace Gallery, Aberdeen (toured to Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow and Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
  • 1979 Narrative Paintings: Figurative Art of Two Generations selected by Timothy Hyman, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (toured to Arnolfini, Bristol) *
  • 1965 Four Young Artists, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London *
  • 1963 John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool *

 (* denotes a group exhibition)