About the Collection

The catalogue represents an assessment of approximately 342 paintings, together with seven sketchbooks and two sheaf bundles of loose sketches (one Alec Fleming’s, one Barbara Fleming’s), thought to be by Alec and Barbara Fleming, Cheshire-based painters active in the post-war period and throughout the 1950s to the 1980s.

The catalogue is a working document. Titles marked as assigned have been given for cataloguing and are not the artists’ own; dates, sitters and places are recorded only as far as the evidence allows. Every numbered catalogue entry is published here, with the reference photograph where one exists. Numbers 66 and 224 are control numbers with no work attached, and numbers 123–132 are reserved in the catalogue for sketchbooks; no records are shown for them.

For each painting the catalogue records:

• Catalogue number
• Attribution
• Material and platform (support)
• Subject description and title
• Verso
• Comments overall — quality, date, series and context
• Condition
• Size

Sketchbooks and sheaf bundles are recorded with attribution, contents, condition and notes. Where the catalogue does not record a detail, the record says so rather than supplying one.

Because two painters are represented, and because some works are unsigned, attribution is stated with care. The following wording is used throughout the catalogue.

Alec Fleming / Barbara Fleming

The work is given to the named artist on the basis of a signature, documentation or other firm evidence.

Attributed to …

The work is believed to be by the named artist, typically on stylistic or circumstantial grounds, but the evidence is not conclusive.

Alec or Barbara Fleming (attribution uncertain)

The work is believed to be by one of the two artists but cannot at present be assigned to either.

Possibly Barbara Fleming (attribution uncertain)

The catalogue tentatively suggests one of the two artists, but the work is unsigned and the suggestion is not established.

Attribution under research

No attribution is proposed yet. The work is included because it forms part of the collection.

Inscriptions on the reverse

Many boards are marked “A Fleming” in marker pen, in block capitals, on the reverse. Some of these may be by Barbara Fleming.

It is unlikely that the same marker pen, in the same hand and in the same position on the board, would have been used over several decades. In places the marker is written over older paint marks, staining and scarring, which suggests a later application — potentially at a single date, to denote ownership rather than attribution, and probably by Alec Fleming.

Where a work carries only this marking, it is not given to Alec Fleming on that basis.

Dates and places

A date is given without qualification only where the work is dated by the artist or carries a dated inscription. Other dates are marked as approximate. Places are named only where identified; suggestions such as “possibly France” are stated as suggestions.

Revisions to attributions, dates and identifications will be noted here.

[Date]

Placeholder update entry — for example, a sitter identified or an attribution revised.

Corrections and further information about the artists or individual works are welcome, particularly documents, photographs, exhibition records and recollections.

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