Cranborne Chase Pictures
Copyright Cranborne Chase Pictures 2005-2008©
Christopher Row
When Christopher Row died in 2006, he left behind a vast collection of work, striking for its originality and psychological depth. Very few of his pictures had ever been exhibited and not even his own family had seen a large part of the work in his studio.
His great passion was for imaginative drawing - his paintings often depict groups of two or more figures that appear to be emotionally linked to each other as if acting out the dramas of the human condition with all its complexities. The viewer feels that he is eaves dropping on a tense dramatic situation that he can’t quite understand. This allows for a variety of interpretations for each picture ie every viewer can make up his own mind as to what is happening. This makes the pictures very enigmatic. He never liked to give titles to his pictures for this reason. Some of the drawings are of a political nature as he had strong views on politics and education. He was involved with the ‘’free schools’’ campaign during the 60’s.
Christopher was born in 1922 in Devon and educated at West Bucklands School on Exmoor where he discovered his passion for drawing. He was posted to India for the war years were he served as an officer in the Army and learnt survival skills in the jungle with Jim Corbet - famous for hunting man eating tigers.
When he returned after the war he studied painting at Goldsmiths College of Art, married Mavis Freer and had four children. He spent his working life as an art teacher in London secondary school;s, while doing his own painting and drawing at every opportunity.