The Malta Independent on Sunday
Richard Cole in Gozo
Artist Richard Cole has returned to our islands, this time with an exhibition fully dedicated to the island of Gozo. This will be his first exhibition here since the publication of his book Malta & Gozo – An Artist’s View (Miller Publications 2019), in which he provides a visual experience of Malta and Gozo, then and now.
Apart from being a very prolific artist, throughout his long career Cole has produced caricatures and political cartoons for key British publications such as The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sunday and Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times and The Guardian. He was also a contract artist for American CBS News covering major political debates in The House of Commons, and during high profile terrorist trials in Europe.
Cole has enjoyed a long relationship with Malta and Gozo, a relationship born several decades long. It all began with a cartoon he had been commissioned to prepare for The London Times way back in 1975. His depiction of then Prime Minister Dom Mintoff, dressed as Napolean Bonaparte, kicking the British bulldog into the Mediterranean Sea was observed with interest by the Maltese, and he was subsequently invited to visit Malta with a complimentary air ticket.
He has never regretted that first visit which brought him in touch with Malta and Gozo’s picturesque nuances, the character of their towns, villages and inhabitants. His expansive collection of paintings drawings eventually came together in his 2019 book about Malta and Gozo. During its preparation, he visited old haunts, some of which were unfindable and others which he could retrace and reminisce about. He even sought out people he had met during his varied visits, including shop owners and villagers, who had happily allowed him to sketch them when they met. Several of these people are present in his book and remain emblazoned therein. Even today, while on the islands, he likes to venture around in search of the idyllic location or the curious corner to sketch and paint, meeting new people and making new friends.
As is habitual in all his artworks, including the ones portrayed in his several other books dedicated to villages in the UK and France, he selects his subjects on a whim, dedicates his attention to them fully, and skillfully depicts them for posterity. He manages to capture the essence of a place and a time, drawing inspiration from a moment that encapsulates the tangible atmosphere he experiences.
The Richard Cole exhibition, currently showing in Gozo, is a case in point. It is a contained show of works, some of which take us back to experience Gozitan village scenes very rarely seen nowadays, if at all. Consider the group of black-clad ladies sitting outside their front doors, neighbours or sisters, creating the emblematic Gozitan bobbin lacework which is typically made upon upright pillows standing on the ladies’ laps. Then there are the donkeys and the carts – nostalgic images of bygone days which many of us still remember from our childhood. Village squares, well-known village haunts and niches… Cole manages to take us back in time or perhaps just provide a vivid image of a here and now where we can recognise the Gozo of today.
If you are popping over to Gozo for the weekend, or if you actually live there, a visit to this show is not to be missed, to see this Englishman’s viewpoint of a tiny island he has grown to love so much.