Grassington Houses by Herbert Scarfe,1955. Image: In a private collection
The painter/teacher, Herbert Scarfe, was born in 1920 in Shipley.
His father, also Herbert, was a widower when he married his dead wife’s sister, Francis Scholefield, and he and Frances raised two children of their own, including Herbert, alongside two from his earlier marriage. Laurence Scarfe, a child from Herbert (senior’s) first marriage to Alice Scholefield, also became a well-known artist and illustrator.
Herbert (junior) was a pupil at Shipley Central School, where he demonstrated a talent for drawing and painting that gained him a West Riding Scholarship to study at Shipley School of Art, Saltaire.
At the outbreak of World War Two Herbert, aged 19, was still studying art at Shipley School of Art, but in 1939 he enlisted in the Royal Artillery. It is recorded that during WW2 he worked with the Camouflage Directorate at Leamington Spa.
Based at the Regent Hotel, Leamington Spa, the Directorate’s 250 artists, designers and technicians worked in secret disguising key bombing targets in Britain with a wide range of camouflage deception techniques and methods. In addition to developing his skills as an artist, Herbert would have had the opportunity of meeting and working alongside some of Britain’s finest artists, including Blair Hughes-Stanton, Mervyn Peake, Edward Seago, and Leon Underwood.
On demobilisation in 1946, Herbert found employment teaching art part-time at the Bradford College of Art, the Leeds College of Art and the Batley School of Art. In parallel to his teaching, he rented a studio at the Wesley House, Browgate, Baildon and began to exhibit his own artwork; these were initially characterised by artworks of coastal subjects, including of seabirds, rocks, and the sea, by broadened as time went by to include landscapes. His Baildon studio also became a popular meeting place for local artists
His first solo exhibition was in 1948 at the Bradford Civic Playhouse, and in the same year he was one of four Yorkshire artists to display work at an exhibition in Crag Road Junior School, Windhill. He also exhibited in group shows, including at the Keighley Museum in 1953, the 20th West Riding Artists’ Exhibition at Wakefield. and a Yorkshire Artists’ Exhibition at the Leeds Art Gallery.
In 1949 married Doreen Whitfield and the same year was appointed a full-time tutor at Heckmondwike Grammar School. Herbert moved to the Gomersall area and he and Doreen raised a family: two sons: Douglas and Peter. Herbert stayed at Heckmondwike Grammar School until 1956, when he was appointed senior art master at the Malet Lambert High School, Hull; the family moved to Long Riston, near Hull.
In addition to his teaching, Herbert continued to exhibit his own work widely, including a solo show in the Senior Common Room of the University of Hull in 1963, and a group show at the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, in the same year. He also had a solo show at the Middlesbrough Art Gallery in 1965, and featured in the East Yorkshire Artists’ Exhibition in the same year. A scraperboard illustration of the Five Rise Locks, Bingley, was featured in the 1967 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He also had a solo show at Spalding in 1968.
Herbert’s work often featured seascape scenes and wildlife from the Yorkshire Coast and he also wrote nine books on lapidary, gave lectures on the subject, and formed a Lapidary Group in the Sixth Form of the Malet Lambert School during his time there.
After retirement he continued to live at his home in Catwick Lane, Long Riston until his death in 2012.
(With thanks to researcher, Colin Coates, Saltaire Village Website, for his help in compiling this profile of the artist.)