John Foulger
10.09.1942 - 25.05.2007
The only known photograph of John Foulger
June 2014
There has been some debate on the pronunciation of the Foulger surname, but after speaking to two old friends of Johns I can confirm that it is pronounced with a hard g, as in game.
The first Foulgers arrived in England following the Norman Conquest of 'William the Conqueror' in 1066.
Johns parents, Joseph Foulger and Rosina Threader were married in Croydon, London in 1939, and John Frederick Foulger was born in Ilford, Essex on the 10th of September 1942, with his sister Mavis being born two years later in 1944.
John spent his schooldays in Ilford and left secondary school in 1958, having gained 1 'O' level in Art.
He then moved with his sister Mavis and parents to Oxted in Surrey and then to Oxshott.
His parents had secured jobs working for a wealthy family living in Birds Hill Rd, Oxshott.
Johns father became the chauffeur / handyman and his mother became their housekeeper.
The Foulgers lived at 'The Gables Cottage', a property in the grounds of 'the Big House' that came with the job.
John enjoyed sports and played at right-back in defense for several years in a local non-league football team on Sundays.
He didn't go on to college after leaving school but his working life is unknown for the next three years.
In 1962 Foulger began working for Gladwell and Co, a prestigious Art Gallery now trading as Gladwell and Patterson and based in Knightsbridge, London.
At the time John started, the business was located at the corner of Queen Victoria St in the shadow of St Pauls Cathedral.
Gladwells is probably the oldest Gallery in England, with a history of selling pictures and prints going back to their origins in London in 1752.
I recently spent a very pleasant afternoon with Anthony Fuller, the current owner of Gladwell and Patterson who took over the running of the business after the death of his Father in 1980.
Anthony remembered Foulger "always drawing and doodling on a pad of paper during quiet spells at work during the day!"
Gladwell & Co, Queen Victoria Street
John Russell worked for Gladwell and Co for over fifty years as a picture and frame restorer, and remembers Johns early days.
He told me ''I had been with the firm about a year before John started in '62.
I worked in the restoration department and John joined the sales team.
He was smartly dressed in a suit and started on a salary of £8 a week plus a small commission on sales.
We became friends over the next few months and saw each other outside of work.
John told me a funny story of how he had got the job at Gladwells.
He said that the owner of the Gallery at the time also owned a small chain of Estate Agents.
John had initially enquired about a job selling property but was told there weren't any vacancies.
Luckily there was a vacancy going at the Gallery and John was offered it.''
How different things might have been if Foulger had become an Estate Agent!
John Russell continued ''John enjoyed the job at the beginning but started to become disillusioned with the sales side of things.
He talked more and more about quitting the job and giving painting a serious go himself.
In 1965, after three years at the Gallery he told me 'if i don't do it now i never will' and gave in his notice.
I wished him good luck and continued to see him occasionally for several years.
He started painting full time, putting on a few small local exhibitions and began selling pictures.
I last saw him in Middleton in the mid 70's and then our paths drifted apart.''
John continued living with his parents for three or four years after leaving Gladwells and then met a girl living in Middleton-on-Sea, a small seaside village in West Sussex on the South Coast of England.
He moved in with her, living first at 'Mayflower Cottage', Sea Way, and then moved to a bungalow at 16 North Avenue in 1978, staying there until he passed away in May 2007.
Foulger gives us a glimpse of where his admiration lay in the art world by naming his bungalow 'Corot' after Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796 - 1875), a pivotal figure in the Barbizon School of painters who were the forerunners to the Impressionists.
John also admired the work of the English Post-Impressionist painter Edward Seago (1910-1974), and had prints of his work on the walls at his home.
' Corot ', 16 North Avenue, Middleton-On-Sea
'Corot', 16 North Avenue, Middleton-on-Sea
Many of Johns oil paintings on board list his name, address, date and title on the reverse with 'Corot' as the name of his bungalow at the top.
John also occasionally added a printed label with his address details. I have only seen two examples of this.
Middleton to Brighton is 25 miles
Foulger painted all over the UK in the 1970's, combining his two passions of painting and horse racing, attending the local race courses wherever his travels took him.There are pictures from his visits to the Midlands, the North of England and Scotland, but we are unaware of any pictures from abroad and are unsure as to whether he ever travelled outside the United Kingdom.
After moving to Middleton-on-Sea in the early 70's he began to focus his attention almost exclusively on the landscapes and beaches of the stunning countryside right on his doorstep.
Middleton-on-Sea lies in a beautiful part of West Sussex on the South Coast of England. It has a population of just 5000 and, historically, the village has always attracted a larger than average proportion of retirees, drawn to its quiet pace of life, fresh sea air and its wide sandy beach banked with shingle.
With its small parade of shops, village pond and local pub, Middleton is the quintessential sleepy seaside village.
Arundel with its stunning castle as a backdrop, nearby Chichester with its Cathedral, and Bognor Regis, as well as Goodwood and Fontwell race courses all lie within a 5 mile radius of Middleton.
Arundel Castle
Foulgers version of Arundel Castle
Packing his painting materials into, as one Middleton resident recalled 'a succession of old banger cars, one a particularly horrible puss yellow estate', Foulger headed out into the countryside and painted 'en plein air' (in the open air), a French expression to describe painting outside.
He was often seen locally on the beach at Middleton, a few minutes walk from his bungalow, especially if there was a storm with thunder and lightning.
John obviously revelled in the overcast skies, storms and snow that feature in a great many of his paintings.
Johns love of horse racing and gambling gave him an opportunity to travel all over the UK.
He was regularly seen at local racecourses in Chepstow, Lingfield, Fontwell and Goodwood, walking the course and paddocks with camera and sketchbook in hand.
Using the photographs and drawings made on the spot, the paintings he produced on his return home were used several times as official prizes for horse racing events at later dates.
His painting of 'Persian War', a famous racehorse, was donated to auction with the proceeds going to the Injured Jockeys Fund, a charity that has helped over 1000 jockeys injured while racing.
He was regularly asked to paint more racing pictures but usually declined, saying privately that he didn't wish to become known as an artist who always painted horse racing pictures.
Chasing at Fontwell Park
Brenda Thompson moved to Middleton from London in the late 1980's.
An amateur artist herself, she began to teach art to adults at a weekly evening class in the local village hall.
Brenda knew him for twenty years but knew nothing of his life before he moved to Middleton.
"John was a difficult man to get to know" she said. "He never volunteered any information about his early life and I never asked. He wasn't interested in chit chat but I think that because I was involved in art, or maybe because I gave as good as I got and didn't stand for any of his nonsense, but John was usually fine with me.
He could always be offish. If he didn't want to chat when we passed in the street he'd nod and carry on walking, but usually he was happy to stop and chat about art.
Sometimes I'd ask if he'd sold any paintings and John would get theatrical as he could at times. He was a big man, quite wild looking sometimes, standing on the street with his head thrown back and arms flying up in the air.
'Chocolate box crap' he'd shout, 'that's what they want these days, something to match the carpet'.
He'd laugh but he was always half serious. He believed he painted good pictures and that his paintings sold too cheaply.
I remember visiting an exhibition in Arundel where John was showing a few paintings. A man and his wife had been looking at a big seascape on canvas. They'd looked at it and walked on, then came back for a second look and John pounced. He could turn on the charm when he wanted to. There was a potential sale in the air!
Hands gesticulating wildly, looking every inch the artist, he spent five minutes telling them what a fantastic picture it was and they decided they wanted it.
Now this was in the early 90's and many of Johns small pictures were on sale for £20 to £40 but this was a big oil on canvas, around 60cm x 90cm and he'd priced it at £320. It was a lot of money.
The husband pulled out his cheque book. John almost glared.
'Cheque'? he barked, 'no cheques, cash only, there's a cash machine outside round the corner'.
A few minutes earlier he'd been all charm and now he was back to his old self!
The couple looked at each other and quietly walked out. I didn't expect to see them again.
Five minutes later they walked back in and handed John the money. The full asking price. Cash.
'Could you wrap it'? they asked and John scowled. Grabbing the broadsheet newspaper he'd been reading he wrapped it round the middle of the picture with the ends sticking out. He tied it with a piece of string and handed it to them.
'There you go' he said and they walked off, looking delighted, as though that was exactly how they expected an artist to behave.
'You're terrible' I told him after they left and he laughed. 'I'd have offered to drive them home with the picture for £320'.
'They got a bargain' he replied.He was totally serious. John said he painted good pictures and they were worth what he asked for them.
On another occasion when I met him in the street he invited me back to his bungalow. I only went in that one time and I didnt know anyone else who had been inside.
The front garden was really overgrown, you had to fight your way down the path to the front door. The property was a lovely traditional 1920's chalet style bungalow but it had deteriorated over the years. It needed a good clean and a nice fresh coat of paint!
The inside was exactly the same.
Paints, brushes and painting materials all over the place, old furniture, car parts, a stack of newspapers piled on a chair.
Books, records and videos on every available surface.
It was chaos but John didn't seem bothered.
Like I said, I always got on fine with him. I was always straight with him, told him when he was being rude. I think he liked that.
I didnt see much of him in the last few years of his life. He hardly left the bungalow and our paths rarely crossed. I was sad to hear the news that he had passed away".
John cut a striking figure. Standing 6' 5" tall, he was of medium to heavy build with thick hair that often grew long and a full trimmed beard.
Those who knew him later in life describe him as an intensely private man who rarely spoke about himself. He drank whisky and wine quite heavily, and he was intelligent and a good raconteur when talking about a subject he was interested in, but he was often prone to periods of depression and could be downright rude at times!
John never married. He had a long term girlfriend throughout the late 70's and 80's who lived locally but she had her own property and never moved into North Ave.
The relationship ended at the begining of the 90's.
John said he was never lonely. He spent his time out in the Sussex countryside he loved, often out at dawn at the local Gallops, watching the local stable yards exercising their horses as the sun rose.
Back at home later, drinking and smoking, he was usually painting and pottering around into the early hours of the morning.
Two of John Foulgers paint palettes and easel.
I was delighted to purchase these three items recently at a local auction in West Sussex in December 2015. The palettes and easel were given to the vendor by John.
As his painting style became more fluid and free through the 70's and 80's, he began to use the faster drying and more convenient acrylic paints rather than the oils of his earlier years.
By the early 1980's John had arrived at the Post-Impressionist style of painting which we are most familiar with when we think about a typical Foulger painting.
John traditionally divides his pictures into the classic proportions of 2/3 sky and 1/3 land or sea.
His big, heavy skies, with clouds banking up on top of each other, are a 'trademark' of Johns, and, as in his personal life, people rarely feature in his pictures.
When they do, they are usually anonymous, and in the distance rather than being the focal point.
His views of Arundel Castle, churches and country cottages, the local harbours and fishing boats all feature many times, and we also see occasional sunny landscapes of hills and forest, and poppy fields in Spring.
However, when we view a larger selection of Johns work it becomes obvious that it is Nature herself, devoid of humans and human habitation that he returns to time and again.
Seascapes and Snowscapes probably account for over fifty per cent of his pictures.
John habitually painted using a limited palette of colours and a low tonal range.
The muted hazy greys, blues, pinks and mauves of his Snowscapes brilliantly capture the mood and feel of the land, silent and still under a blanket of snow.
The weak Winter sunlight fails to penetrate the heavy, sullen cloud filled skies that threaten more snow to come.
His Seascapes can be calm or violent.
Sometimes the waves lap gently against the shore at Middleton, Bognor and along the South Coast, and the sun or moonlight flickers over the surface of the waves.
When he paints the sea in its fury, with the sky and the crashing waves becoming one, the scene becomes Turneresque, the whole, writhing mass of sea and sky becoming a single entity in the maelstrom.
Johns love of the outdoors, and especially what most people would consider to be 'bad weather', has left us with a legacy of hundreds of paintings to admire and enjoy.
John wasn't a prolific painter.
The total output of work over his 30 year career probably numbers around 3,000 paintings.
During the last few years of his life, as he became more reclusive and retreated into the bungalow, private collectors still knocked on his door occasionally and bought from him, and he was selling pictures through the local auction houses and galleries.
In a letter from John to friends who had moved away from Middleton, (the only text i have seen in his own hand writing) dated December 2006, five months before he passed away, he fills them in on the local news and mentions visiting 'some good charity shops' in Bognor Regis and finding 'some super books, videos and records'.
Johns dry sense of humour comes out when he writes that a mutual female acquaintance from Middleton had phoned him recently after moving to France.
He says 'I expect you remember her, breathing in the fumes around the necks of the whisky bottles - never buying one of course'.
A marvellous turn of phrase!
Then, at the end of the letter, there is a final, tantalising glimpse of how John must have been spending a lot of his spare time in the last five to six years when not painting.
"I have been painting snowscapes and moonlight pictures for the galleries - they seem to have a good sale for them in the run-up to Christmas. (Oh Lor!)
I am coming to the end of my fourth novel and all the various endings are being tied up, so I will probably finish the story with this. Some of the characters have been part of my life for five or six years, so I am going to miss them.
Like the sunset, everything comes to an end.
I hope you are keeping well and will enjoy yourselves over Christmas.
Kindest Regards. John"
Four lost Foulger novels!
I'm afraid I have no more information to offer, their subject matter can only be guessed at.
I believe they must have been disposed of after his bungalow was cleared following his death,
but I hope that I'm proved wrong one day and that someone may have saved them.
His sense of melancholy at coming to the end of the fourth novel is very real.
Saying goodbye to old friends is always hard.
The end of the letter is very poignant. 'Like the Sunset, everything comes to an end'.
Intimations of his own mortality?
I like to think that John spent his last Christmas 'tying up the loose ends' in his books and painting his pictures.
The pictures were the one constant throughout his life, and he was painting right up to his death as pictures exist dated 2007.
John had a heart attack at home at 'Corot' and passed away on May 25th 2007.
He was cremated at Worthing Crematorium on June 18th.
No minister was present at his funeral and I believe, but cannot confirm, that there were no mourners at the ceremony.
One week later, on June 25th, his ashes were scattered in the 'Spring Glade', an area of woodland and meadow maintained in a natural state to encourage rare flora and fauna.
The 'Spring Glade' is part of the 42 acres of grounds that surround the crematorium, set within the South Downs National Park.
There is no memorial or headstone to mark his final resting place.
After his death it was discovered that John had left his bungalow, bank balance and over 100 paintings to the Oxfam Charity.
The sale of his paintings took place in the Oxfam shop in the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, Scotland, over several days in the Summer of 2008.
Temporarily turning the shop into an Art Gallery, the sale of his pictures was a great success and raised over £13,000 for the charity.
It was the largest gathering of Foulgers work assembled in an official Gallery space.
There is no doubt that John Foulger was extremely undervalued as an artist during his lifetime.
Devoting thirty years of his life to painting, he considered himself a professional artist but he could be cynical about some of the fuss and pretentiousness surrounding the 'Art market', and he made no real effort to increase sales and promotion of his work through the larger London Galleries.
He seemed content packing his car with pictures and exhibiting locally around Sussex including the annual exhibitions in Middleton and Arundel.
He also showed pictures at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery and at the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Marine Artists, the New English Arts Club and the United Society of Artists.
John said he enjoyed painting and that it was something he had no choice over, something he had to do.
It was the 'act' of painting, the 'laying down of the paint' that he enjoyed, whether out in the countryside, down on the beach or, in his later years, back home at the bungalow.
John was obviously an unusual and individual character, moving to sleepy Middleton in his mid thirties, and living alone there, although having a long term girlfriend, till his death thirty years later.
Drinking, smoking, and painting, he was happy in his own company.
Minding his own business, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, he was alone but not lonely in the landscapes and beaches of the Sussex countryside he loved.
Interest in his paintings and recognition as an artist has gradually increased since his death.
Prices have also risen as more people begin to collect his work, and a really good oil painting on canvas of a misty evening view of Arundel Castle recently sold at auction in Spring 2016 for £400.
The sole aim of this website is to be a part of the process of bringing John Foulgers paintings and biography to a wider audience.
Best Regards,
Jon Rounce