20 paintings are what were left of Stewart’s body of work after his family and friends took what they wanted when he died. They are acrylic on board, small to medium-sized, some are framed by the artist. The earliest painting is from 1986, and the latest from 2006, although seven of the paintings are undated. He also left a number of drawings and smaller works.
The paintings are fairly representative of the kind of work he was doing over the last 20–30 years of his life, although the palette here is a lot more subdued than his work more generally. They give the impression that he was a gloomy man, and he often was, but his art was predominantly playful and bright.
You can see some of the themes that he came back to, again and again: lighthouses, craggy-looking trees, cartoonish figures, angular 1960s shapes, a delicate use of flat colour, mythical creatures, abstracts based on Native American imagery, bodies of water, cottages, whimsy, nature.
Most of the paintings are untitled, I have given them descriptive names for this website:
- 2023
- Abstract with circle
- Broken tree
- Canal
- Declamation
- Field and tree
- Fishing
- Gardener
- House and canal
- Lighthouse
- Lighthouse keeper
- Mermaid
- Mushroom
- Raking
- Stone wall
- Sweep
- Three birds
- Trees and lake
- Walker
- Walkers and trees
Here is a little film of the 20 final paintings in my garden, Stewart’s last show.