A Dorking painter is furious after once again being snubbed by a major art gallery, writes EIF News & Features Art Correspondent, Proserpine Gainsborough-Halfwit.
London's Tate Britain has announced that its big autumn show this year will be the first major exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite art in nearly 30 years.
The Pre-Raphaelites, a group of artists led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, were active after 1848. They shook the Victorian art world with their painting-from-nature techniques and moralistic subjects.
Five years in the planning, the Tate show will feature some work rarely seen in the UK together with pieces from collections around the country.
But the work of Dorking's favourite dauber, Postlethwaite Sproot, RA, will not be among them.
"Talk about effin' furious... that's me," he said. "Left out again by the bastards in the effin' art establishment again. It's enough to make you pick up an effin' camera and sod the old painting lark."
Sproot was most recently in the news when he staged a protest outside the National Gallery after none of his works were selected for last year's blockbuster Leonardo Painter At Milan exhibition.
"It's a bloody disgrace - what chance have local painters got in this kind of stifling atmosphere," he fumed.
Fro's work - such as the huge mural Space Aliens In My Garden - have been shown at Dorking Library. But, despite his best efforts, he has continually failed to have his works featured in exhbitions of Hogarth, Turner, the French Impressionists, Pollock and Miro to name a few.
Critics have described his efforts as 'displaying no discernible talent,' 'lacking any technique' and 'so bloody crap it made my eyes bleed.'
A spokesman for Tate Britain said: "Erm... I'm sorry, I don't understand. Why would we include Mr Sproot's work in a Pre-Raphaelite exhibition?"
Sproot added: "Effin typical!"
