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Nicholas Charles Williams, Russell Cotes Art Gallery, Bournemouth THERE'S a final opportunity to see the splendid exhibition of working drawings by Nicholas Charles Williams at Bournemouth's Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum this week. The show, which was opened by former Russell-Cotes 19th-century arts expert Mark Bills - now curator of paintings, prints and drawings at the Museum of London - coincides with Williams' hugely successful solo show of paintings at the Royal Cornwall Museum. It provides a wonderful insight into the rarely seen preliminary drawings by one of Britain's leading figurative painters and also includes for the first time on public display a selection of working drawings, sketchbook notations and initial compositional sketches for Williams' paintings. During his opening speech Mark Bills quoted one analyst as saying that Williams was "an artist who has such a comfortable and informed relationship with the art of the past. There is an eclecticism of styles and subject which show with deceptive ease, how he is able to draw on a large number of sources to produce fresh and vibrant images drawn and explored with consummate skill." Also included in the show are the two chandelier paintings, which Williams was asked to paint by eye alone, for the eminent optical scientist Dr David Stork as evidence supporting the rebuttal of David Hockney's theory on the use of optics by the old masters. The exhibition, which is free, runs until Sunday January 9 at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. Williams lives and works in Cornwall. His studio is an old lifeboat station on the north coast. His major work Adoration of the Sea is on long-term display in Bournemouth's new Central Library.
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