York Festival Triptych

Eurich takes familiar York landmarks and reimagines the city. The Ouse and Foss Bridges span the same river seeming to go nowhere and the buildings to the right and left act as ‘wings' to a triptych composition. On Ouse Bridge a pageant-waggon performance of The Flood takes place, staged for the 1954 Festival of Arts and Mystery Plays. The cycle of the Mystery Plays were revived in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain after almost 400 years and still run every four years. In the Museum Gardens to the left, a performance of The Judgement is also underway …

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Eurich takes familiar York landmarks and reimagines the city. The Ouse and Foss Bridges span the same river seeming to go nowhere and the buildings to the right and left act as ‘wings' to a triptych composition. On Ouse Bridge a pageant-waggon performance of The Flood takes place, staged for the 1954 Festival of Arts and Mystery Plays. The cycle of the Mystery Plays were revived in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain after almost 400 years and still run every four years. In the Museum Gardens to the left, a performance of The Judgement is also underway before St. Mary's Abbey.

From the Richard Eurich interview by James Mellen done in 1978 for the Imperial War Museum "Artists in an Age of Conflict" series of sound recordings

"Some of the paintings which I painted not so very long after the war and which have been stored up in my loft are now being sought after and being purchased. It’s rather a curious sensation. And some quite large paintings which I thought I should never get rid of . . .

In fact, one large painting which I did of a festival at York, . . .  it was a 7 foot …

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From the Richard Eurich interview by James Mellen done in 1978 for the Imperial War Museum "Artists in an Age of Conflict" series of sound recordings

"Some of the paintings which I painted not so very long after the war and which have been stored up in my loft are now being sought after and being purchased. It’s rather a curious sensation. And some quite large paintings which I thought I should never get rid of . . .

In fact, one large painting which I did of a festival at York, . . .  it was a 7 foot affair, I hadn’t room for it in my cottage and I lent it to a school for several years. And then the school changed hands and the master thought that the painting had better be sent back to me. And I thought, 'Well I don’t know what to do. Shall I cut it up into little bits and things, and pieces?’

But I asked a dealer who had a gallery not so far [away in Petersfield] . . . whether he would like to see it and have it. And he was willing to do so. And oddly enough he sold it at an incredible price I thought. And this has happened several times recently with rather largish pictures I’d done which I wondered what on earth to do with. Some of them [had] been up in my loft for quite a long time and suddenly found customers, which is rather gratifying. And one can only sort of say that things do go round in circles."