Tony Pizzey Artist and Teacher
The Book
This book was made to accompany the launch of The Cotham Chess Set and as a reminder of the artwork, teaching and personality of Tony Pizzey.
The first pages show his drawing skill at art college and as the book progresses you will see his skill as a sculptor develop. He devoted most of his time and life to teaching others.
He enjoyed the feedback and satisfaction from seeing others succeed and the look of joy on the faces of those who received the benefit of his generosity with his own skills.
He built a tree on the wall in a primary school festooned with wildlife, built a pirate ship for his grandson, and made a Tracy Island for another grandson when the toy shops had run out. Designing stage sets for school and amateur dramatic productions was another of his talents. He was also well known in his local area of Somerset for painting house signs. When his family was young he built them toys and made furniture including bunk beds.
He spent many years in the classroom followed by years of training young teachers. People loved working with him, he made them laugh not just a little but a lot and all the time. His colleagues and family still tell stories about him and he was never too proud to laugh at himself.
It is very hard to capture his sense of fun and enthusiasm for life in words. He was relentlessly positive and moved on from one project to the next sometimes at the expense of others. Trying to encourage him to take more responsibility for house management he once said “Have you ever seen pictures of Picasso hoovering?”.
So please enjoy the work and perhaps read a little about him. If you learn something or more importantly become inspired he would be delighted.
