Joe Scarborough (artist)

Joe Scarborough (born 1938) is an English artist. He is most famous for painting humorous scenes of Sheffield life - everyday "real" images of the life and people of South Yorkshire.[1][2]

Life

Scarborough was born in Pitsmoor, Sheffield.[3] His career began as a laboratory assistant at the Batchelors processed food company.[4][2] He became a face worker at the Thorpe Hesley colliery,[2] and was inspired to paint by the contrast of the darkness of the mines and the lightness of the real world above the ground.[1] In 1968 disenchantment with the pits led to numerous jobs - labourer, municipal park gardener and a washer upper for some years, nurturing a dream to be a full-time painter. For years he pushed a handcart, packed with paintings round all his local pubs selling what he could in almost folkloric-like tradition, becoming at times like the characters he went on to portray in later scenes.[2]

He was married: his wife, Audrey, died in 2002 and he moved to live in a narrowboat on Victoria Quays.[2]

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Sheffield Legend plaque

In 2008 he was commemorated as one of the Sheffield Legends with a star on the 'Walk of Fame' outside Sheffield Town Hall.[3]

Works

Scarborough's first one-man show lasted for two years at the Attic Cafe near Sheffield's main bus station. One-man and mixed exhibitions followed which took the everyday scenes of Yorkshire life from Sheffield to Rotherham to London to San Francisco to Chicago and back to Sheffield.[1]

Scarborough's paintings now appear in several major collections and numerous works have been imprinted. The images, the humour, the friendships, the story telling is still the same.[1]

Sixteen of his paintings are in Sheffield public art collections, for example Sheffield Museums and Sheffield Hallam University. This includes his largest work "Sheffield Through the Ages" which is 30 feet by 8 feet in the Weston Park Museum.[2][5]

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References
  1. "The Joe Scarborough Gallery". Archived from the original on 5 December 2007. Retrieved 5 January 2008.
  2. "The Michelangelo of Ponds Forge". Yorkshire Post. 21 November 2015. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  3. "Star for Joe, the Pride of Sheffield". The Star. Sheffield. 4 June 2008. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  4. "Sheffield City Council - Joe Scarborough". Retrieved 26 September 2016.
  5. "Joe Scarborough, Sheffield Through the Ages". www.museums-sheffield.org.uk. Museums Sheffield. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
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