Peter Prendergast

Wales's finest landscape painter - who made an epic subject of 'the largest man-made hole in Europe'

Peter Prendergast, painter: born Abertridwr, Glamorgan 27 October 1946; married 1967 Lesley Riding (two sons, two daughters); died Deiniolen, Gwynedd 14 January 2007.

Following the death of Sir Kyffin Williams in October, Peter Prendergast was acknowledged to be the finest landscape painter in Wales - and Williams's heir in representing the rugged beauty of Snowdonia for his people and the wider world.

Prendergast was born in 1946 in Abertridwr in the Aber valley, in what is now Mid-Glamorgan. His father was a miner of Irish Catholic stock. While his brother passed the 11-plus and went on to the grammar school, Peter was consigned to the local secondary modern, where he excelled mainly at games; he seemed destined to follow his father into the mines.

However, he was fortunate to be taught by a remarkable art master; Gomer Lewis, who had survived years as a POW in Java at the hands of the Japanese, recognised Peter Prendergast's talent and brought him to the attention of the County Art Adviser, an accomplished painter, Leslie Moore. With Moore's support, though with no academic qualifications, Prendergast entered the foundation course at Cardiff School of Art in 1962 and two years later progressed from there to the Slade.

At that time Sir William Coldstream was the Professor and the staff included Robyn Denny, Francis Bacon, Jeff Camp, Euan Uglow and Frank Auerbach, who was Prendergast's tutor. Somewhat overwhelmed by the challenges of living in London - on first arriving he had spent almost half his grant on a taxi ride from Paddington to Woodside Park - nevertheless, he more than survived the Slade, winning the Nettleship Prize for Figure Painting in 1967.

Later he was aware that his Expressionist painting would be attributed, inevitably, to the influence of Auerbach; but he was insistent that his bold colours, often held within structures by thick black lines, had been present in his work from his schooldays working with Gomer Lewis.

In his last year at the Slade, Peter Prendergast met and married Lesley Riding. He taught in a school part-time for the 1967-68 academic year, then went to Reading University to do the MA course with Terry Frost and Claude Rogers: he needed a degree to realise his ambition to combine a more permanent teaching post with his vocation as an artist.

At that time the university was not particularly supportive of painting the figure or landscape and it was his fellow student and landscape painter Len Tabner who was closer in spirit and practice to the Welsh painter. They remained close friends for the rest of Prendergast's life. After graduation Tabner settled in Yorkshire and encouraged Prendergast likewise to move into the country, where there was landscape and affordable living.

In 1969 Peter and Lesley Prendergast moved to Bethesda, eventually to live in a house close to where the German immigrant Martin Bloch had painted the quarry workers on his visits to Wales in 1947-54. Penrhyn Quarry was the main employment for workers in the Bethesda area; it dominated local politics, social life and the physical environment. But, after four years of part-time teaching at Liverpool School of Art, Prendergast's contract was ended:

They decided that drawing was out of date, not needed in schools any more . . . So at 27 I was out of work, with two children. Out of date, out of touch.

From that low point Prendergast would work determinedly to become a significant painter. He taught for a period at the local school and then at Coleg Menai, but over the next decade the quarry would provide him with an epic subject. He won prizes at the National Eisteddfod in 1975 and 1977, a period during which the Gold Medal for Art was not presented.

In 1977 the art historian Lewis Allen bought a painting for the Contemporary Art Society of Wales, the first of several that society would acquire and distribute to galleries in Wales. The Allens also bought the largest of the study drawings of Penrhyn Quarry for their own collection. The oil in which that series culminated was acquired by the Tate Gallery in 1984. It is a vision of what Prendergast thought to be "the largest man-made hole in Europe" as an almost Cubist rendition of greens, ochres, blues and black.

Over the next 10 years Prendergast exhibited in Bath at the Artside Gallery and at the Andrew Knight Gallery in Cardiff, as well as with the touring exhibitions "The Road to Bethesda" and "From the Land and the Sea", and in group shows at the Tate, the Laing in Newcastle and Norwich School of Art. His work was seen abroad - in Perth, Australia, and in the United States with the "Artists in National Parks" exhibition.

His first prestigious contract was with Agnew's in London, who were also showing his friend Len Tabner; his relationship with that gallery lasted for a number of years, culminating in an exhibition which toured from London through Wales in 1993 and 1994. Work was included from his earlier career, but the more recent paintings on canvas and paper of the Nant Ffrancon valleys were outstanding. The foreword to that tour's impressive catalogue was written by Sister Wendy Beckett who described Prendergast as "a superb colourist and a master of form"; in front of his paintings, she thought, "it is very tempting to just to ask viewers to stand in silence . . . and let the music 'sing to the spirit' ".

Agnew's made available their apartment in New York and Prendergast overcame his fear of flying to stay there for a short period in 1993. His paintings of that city explore the depths of Manhattan's man-made chasms with an awe reminiscent of his wonder at the scale of Penrhyn Quarry.

When he left Agnew's he showed regularly with the Boundary Gallery in London and with Martin Tinney in Cardiff. Both galleries showed work from his major retrospective of 2006 which had been initiated by Oriel Ynys Mon, the public gallery on Anglesey and which had toured to Machynlleth, Runcorn, Cardiff and Swansea.

The year 2006 had been highly successful for the painter. His touring exhibition was critically well received, many works were sold and a collection of essays by critics such as David Alston and John Russell Taylor, The Painter's Quarry, was published by Seren Books. A 30-minute filmed profile was shown on BBC2 Wales. Towards the end of the year he had contracted to return to a West End gallery: Messum's were planning an exhibition in 2007 in Cork Street.

However, 2006 also saw Peter Prendergast's health deteriorating; he was suffering from debilitating blood disorders. His new series of works took him to the coastline of Anglesey, capturing the energy of the Irish Sea in works such as The Sea at Twr Ellin, Wild Sea and Below the Sea; but, on Sunday, walking with his wife near his home in Deiniolen, Gwynedd, he died suddenly, of a heart attack.

A year ago, he visited for the last time the very frail Sir Kyffin Williams on Anglesey. They talked warmly and with continuing respect each for the other's work. As Prendergast drove off he saw in the rear-view mirror Williams raise both his arms in salutation. It could have been a benediction.

Tony Curtis