Sandy Moffat OBE RSA:
Chair Board of Advisers & President of The Essential School of Painting
Sandy Moffat is a painter and author whose works can be viewed in numerous galleries and public spaces including The National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Arts Council of Great Britain and the Yale Centre of British Art. A Royal Scottish Academician,Sandy has also been awarded an OBE for his services to the arts.
The former Head of Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art Sandy Moffat is credited with encouraging and steering the resurgence of figurative painting at the GSA. He has been a visiting lecturer and external examiner to several schools of art including The Winchester School of Art, Croydon School of Art, Canterbury College of Art, Chelsea College of Art & Design, Gray’s School of Art and The University of Highlands and Islands.
He has had solo exhibitions in numerous places including “A View of the Portrait” at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, “Images from Three Decades” at The Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh and very recently “Paintings as Arguments” at The Peacocks Visual Arts Gallery in Aberdeen.
Sandy has over his long and illustrious career written, contributed to and edited numerous books and publications including the critically acclaimed ‘Arts of Resistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland’ and its sequel published in 2014 ‘Arts of Independence’. He became Honorary President of The Essential School of Painting in 2011
Andrew Wamae
Founder & Director of The Essential School of Painting
Andrew studied at The MS University of Baroda graduating with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB Hon’s) and a Bachelor of Arts Economics (BA Econ Hon’s). Andrew settled in the United Kingdom in 1999. Soon thereafter he worked as a Producer in the BBC World Service. From 2001 -2012 Andrew worked in the Halifax Bank of Scotland in various roles latterly as a Business Manager. He and Alison Harper (below) founded The Essential School of Painting in 2004 and he joined the school in 2013 on a full time basis leading to an impressive acceleration in the school’s growth and development. At The ESOP he is responsible for the running of the school, strategic planning, marketing and promotion both in the UK and abroad.
Alison Harper
Founder & Artistic Director The Essential School of Painting
Alison studied at Glasgow School of Art (1981 to 1985) and as one of “The Glasgow Girls” was part of the resurgence in figurative painting that emerged at that time. In 1993 Alison won the Commonwealth Scholarship to paint in India for two years (1993 to 1995) and upon her return to the United Kingdom took up a part-time lectureship in Painting and Printmaking at Glasgow School of Art (1995 to 2002) becoming one of the youngest lecturers to teach there. Selected exhibitions include The National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Academy, London, Leicester City Art Gallery, Stirling Museum, the Boundary Gallery, London, the Graphic Museum of Tokyo, Japan, the India Today Gallery New Delhi, India. Alison is a recipient of numerous Scholarships, awards and prizes including the Norwegian Government Scholarship, the Cheltenham Drawing Prize, Ruth Davidson Memorial Award and the Prince’s Drawing School Bursary Award. Alison is included in the following publications, Who’s Who in Art and Who’s Who of Women in the World. Aside from being the Founder and a director of TheESOP, Alison works part-time as a tutor and the Co-ordinator for Drawing and Painting at the City-Lit Institute in London. Alison lives in London with her husband Andrew Wamae and son. Alison is also an ordained Buddhist, joining the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2002
Members of the Board
Part of the board L to R Catrin Treadwell, Annette Kobak, Alison Harper, Thai Ping Won and Pearl Brown
in Alphabetical order
Annette Kobak
Annette Kobak is a writer and occasional broadcaster whose most recent book Joe’s War: my father decoded was read as Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. Described as a ‘super-eclectic mix of memoir, biography, history and travelogue’, and much praised in the UK and USA, the book tracks her young Czechoslovak father’s journey out of war-torn Europe in 1940 and her unravelling of his surprising history. The parallel journey she made for Joe’s War, with its formal advantage of creating conversation between past and present, has spurred her to make another over-ambitious journey for her current book on Mme de Staël.
Annette’s biography of the traveller Isabelle Eberhardt Isabelle, which Bill Bryson called ‘A wonderful book — instantly absorbing and beautifully written’, is now a Virago Classic and was made into a film for the BBC2 series Great Journeys. She has also translated Isabelle’s only novel Vagabond from the French.
Annette devised and presented the BBC Radio 4 series The Art of Travel, 36 intimate interviews with now-iconic travel writers. She is a long-standing reviewer for the New York Times Book Review and the Times Literary Supplement, and a former chair of the Cheltenham Literary Festival. She has received an Arts Council award and a Society of Authors travel award, and is now on the Society of Authors’ broadcasting committee. She has MA degrees from Cambridge in modern languages and the University of East Anglia in creative writing. Recently she has contributed essays to volumes in the UK and USA on life narratives and human rights.
Becky Dawsey
Becky Dawsey, Art Enthusiast. B S Degree in Criminology and Corrections. Heading for University to study Art History, tragic events made me change to a degree in Criminal Justice. Art History and painting has always been my first love. Whenever possible I have used painting as a means of helping people to discover their own talent, to communicate abstract feelings, to recover from illness and to bring friends together just for fun. I have led group sculpture activities for all ages in the Church. I am currently involved in Messy Church., which is an art based fun way to bring children into Church to learn about the Bible. It seems like I have been going to The Essential School of Painting all my life. I am very much at home there. I have absolute respect for Alison, her art and her wonderful school. I am honoured to be involved in the schools future, and hope that I can be of service.
Catrin Treadwell
I was raised in Wales where I was enthused at an early age by the French 19th century paintings at the National Museum. As a child I particularly loved Renoir’s La Parisienne (affectionately known locally as The Blue Lady). I painted and drew whenever I could and wished to go to art college but my sensible parents urged me to study a subject that might, they hoped, provide me with a more secure future. I read law at university but joined the BBC rather than become a lawyer. For most of my career I worked as an announcer and news presenter for the BBC World service but also had several stints in Vienna working for ORF as a classical music presenter. I was also a freelance features journalist and voiceover artist.
Several years ago, exhausted by regular night shifts, I left the BBC and was thus able to do something I’d craved for many years; I began to study drawing . Alison was my first portrait tutor and that’s when my enthusiasm really took hold. Drawing led eventually to my taking up painting in oils. I’ve recently begun to paint in egg tempera also.
I have a strong interest in historic architecture and am a trustee of the World Monuments Fund for Britain (the British branch of a world-wide American organisation). I travel to India whenever I can. My home is crammed with several thousand books and I have a mild allergy to television. I am married to a former English Lit academic cum drama producer, have two grown up sons and divide my life between Notting Hill and Manhattan.
Johanna Melvin
Johanna Melvin is an artist and arts professional with many years of experience in print production, sales and curation having run her own small art business over two decades. Since 2006 Jo pioneered a fund-raising limited editions programme at the Whitechapel Gallery London, in liaison with the Gallery’s curatorial team and leading international contemporary artists, print-makers and fabricators, to build a highly successful business for the Gallery.
Jo has extensive experience of art fairs having project managed the Gallery’s participation at fairs world-wide including the London Art Fair, Christie’s Multiplied and Art 13 & 14 as well as the Armory Show New York, Expo Chicago, Contemporary Istanbul, NADA Miami and Artissima Turin. Since 2011 she has also been key in the project leading of an editions consortium: Allied Editions at Frieze London in collaboration with six other non-profit organisations (Camden Arts Centre, Serpentine Galleries, South London Gallery, ICA London, Chisenhale Gallery and Studio Voltaire)
Jo has painted all her life, eventually gaining a BA Fine Art (Hons) as a mature student at Sir John Cass Faculty of Fine art in the 1990’s where she specialised in printmaking and painting. She is a keen advocate of the continued teaching of painting, drawing and printmaking in art schools today and has studied intermittently at the Essential School of Painting over the last 10 years, including several terms as Course Assistant at the School.
Exhibiting widely since the early 90’s, including five times at The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Show, Jo has also exhibited at The Contemporary Art Society and Flowers Gallery. Jo has work in many private collections including the Sir John Cass Print Room, The Groucho Club Collection and Whitechapel Gallery Archives.
Pearl Brown
I loved the art classes at school, stumbled into silk screen print in my 20s and really did nothing in this area until reaching my mid 50s and semi retiring from the NHS, apart that is from membership of various art galleries in London. I spent most of my career in the NHS starting as a nurse, graduating later as a social scientist, moving into management and laterally setting up and running a Community Services NHS Trust in central London as CEO for 8 years. In the most recent years though City Lit and now the ESOP, I have found a renewed joy in exploring the different approaches, medium and the excitement of the art world. For me (and I think for others) the opportunity to be stretched and excited by these opportunities allows me to explore a whole new area of my life that I never really knew was there and I love it!
Thai Ping Wong
Born in Malaysia and have lived in London just over 30 years now. Studied in Penang, Malaysia then went to Sydney where I graduated with Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Accounting, Finance & Systems. Worked in Malaysia and Australia in Accounting, Auditing and taxation. Thereafter I came to the UK where I had a year off and decided to do something different – Got a 1 Year Diploma of Interior Design (Inchbald School of Design). Continued my career doing my MBA degree at The London Business School (1986-1988) . Thereafter involved in Finance, Business Development, Planning and Strategy for a variety of UK listed retailers including Wickes, BHS etc. liaising with senior management, Board of Directors. Responsible for Capital Expenditure with these companies and undertook various ad hoc projects – post acquisition, development sites for expansion, formulating business strategy, establishing competitor intelligence systems. Economic assessment of various markets and countries. I have also been involved in Charitable Boards including the Development Board of London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, one of the oldest drama and acting schools in the UK. I have also had an inclination in the Arts although I have not made a career of it. I have delved in Interior Design. Done courses in Sculpture & Mosaics. Recently I have been strongly motivated in Painting, Drawing & Printmaking & I have undertaken various courses at City Lit and Central St Martins.
During that time, I got to know Alison Harper who has now introduced me to the Essential School of Painting. I am contributing my services to the school. I am also a member of The Tate and member of the Royal Academician’s Room and attend a lot of art and cultural exhibitions. Hobbies include gardening, walking, cycling, skiing, tennis, gym, swimming, painting, opera, theatre and cultural events. Travel frequently.