JAGO STONE - MORE IMAGES AND THE BERTIE BARRETT STORY

At present, I am helping the Unicorn design team in preparing the images for my biography of Jago Stone that will be published on October1, 2019. As I looked through the full set, I thought it would make a great Jago post to show together all the images from one particular part of the collection that now graces the walls of our home - the six water-colours that we bought from Bertie Barrett who had been gifted them by his grandfather, Graham Newsom. Here for the first time are these Jago paintings as photographed by the talented Leo Walker of St Ives - press this link for further details of Leo and Larisa and their studio.

Untitled - Jago Stone (1971)

I can best retell the Bertie Barrett story by using the text I produced just over two years ago within two posts that I published then. Here is detail from a blog-post dated 13 November, 2016:  

It was last month, in late October, that I opened the email with the title 'The Rollright Stones'. I knew not what to expect. This time the communication came from a fifteen year old student who had discovered my 'wonderful' website and interest in Jago from a google search and wanted to know the current market value of a Jago 



Stone painting and whether I knew of any likely buyers. He explained his grandparents had some of Jago's paintings and were happy to gift him one to sell to help raise money to send him on a one month adventure excursion to Peru.

The Rollright Stones - Jago Stone (1971)

An exchange of emails followed. I talked with granddad for twenty-five minutes over the phone, two days later. Mum and Dad changed their half-term holiday plans to drive their teenage son and younger brother all the way to Cornwall a week later to deliver to our house the five paintings we had been offered and bought. It turned out there was also a sixth painting that we also bought. This blog has images of three of them - a later blog will show the others.

Let me give you the drift of the phone conversation with granddad as from this I established the provenance of the paintings. Grandad, now aged eighty, had been an area manager for Ind Coope brewery with responsibility for the drinking places within central Oxford. His professional duties had brought him in 1972 to the 'Chequers' public house in the High in Oxford shortly after a sale of Jago Stone paintings there had closed. He found there were still four paintings left unsold. He liked and bought them. He thinks from memory they were priced around £30.00 each. A fifth painting was then found and acquired at that point in 1972.
He did not meet Jago at that time. A sixth Jago painting from that period of the very early 70s - a painting of New College, Oxford - came into his possession when his wife, around the turn of  the century, discovered the work in the cellar of 'The Ampleforth Arms' in Oxford in the course of her professional work as a licensed victualler broker, making valuations of licensed premises. This particular painting - that might well  have been one of those in the original 1972 sale - had slight damage caused by water-staining.

New College: Oxford - Jago Stone (1971)

Granddad did meet Jago once but not to talk to in depth when Jago stopped  for water for his car when the teenager's grandparents were living in a bungalow near Thame.
Louise and I really enjoyed the contact we had with three generations of the same family all of whom have been part of the Jago story and admirers of his art. The decision by grandparents to finance their grandson's Peruvian adventure by gifting him their collection of Jago's paintings for him to sell to us is a lovely act. We will be worthy stewards of this collection - and watch with interest the unfolding life story of a remarkable teenager who we now know through the legacy of Jago in his art.   

Butter Cross: Witney, Oxon. - Jago Stone (1971)

And here is the relevant detail from a blog-post dated 3 December, 2016:

I promised to put more flesh on the bare bones of the story of the Oxford discovery I told in the blog on November 13 a few weeks ago. Now I have permissions. The enterprising teenager whose Peruvian adventure holiday is being partly funded by the sale of Jago Stone paintings is Bertie Barrett. Louise and I have had the pleasure of meeting Bertie in person, with mum and dad and younger brother. A lovely family! We wish Bertie well in his future and hope and trust that he follows his dreams and achieves his ambitions. Watch this space. My default position is to side with the young. Powerful people from my generation have failed the young in society in largely unacknowledged selfish ways. Bertie represents for me the potential that won't be wasted in his particular case but is most severely constrained in many others. The future is for the young and our responsibility is to leave a mark that makes it easier - not harder - for them to fulfil themselves.

The Old Wool Market, Chipping Campden - Jago Stone (1970)

Bertie's grandfather is the former area manager of Ind Coope who had the responsibility for the central Oxford area. He is Graham Newsom, now eighty years old. Bertie's grandmother is Julie Newsom, who before her retirement as a licensed victualler broker found the painting of 'New College, Oxford' by Jago Stone and dated 1971 in the cellar of The Ampleforth Arms' in Oxford. Water-stained but still very pleasing to the eye. This particular painting might well have been one of the works successfully sold in the 1972 sale. Graham and Julie have been so generous and loving in gifting their valued collection of Jago Stone paintings to Bertie to sell to raise funds for his Peruvian adventure. Inspirational! 

Yew Tree Cottage, Bodicote, Oxon. - Jago Stone (undated)

Finally, here's the link to my post in September this year about Bertie's Peruvian World Challenge: press here.