Peter Furlonger

My interest in calligraphy grew out my preoccupation with drawing when I was studying Fine Art 1963 - 1977.

During my childhood I had always been aware of shapes and line, ‘Form’, more so than colour perhaps, and this led me to a growing awareness of the characteristics of the ‘written line’, and the individual character of particular letterforms, their shapes, and how they were constructed with the pen.

But this was all ‘latent’. In 1977,I commenced a study of calligraphy, and discovered the work of Edward Johnson and Graily Hewitt, and a little later, Eric Gill, and I began an exploration of the different media and manifestations of lettering art, on a ‘self-taught’ basis, not having access to formal tuition, and thus it continues. Increasingly glass has become the main focus of my work.

Studio glass has developed into my main means of expression over a period of nearly 30years. Initially, my activity as a signwriter made me aware of the striking qualities of lettering painted onto glass, [windows], and in 1990 I discovered modern Studio Glass through my collaboration with glass artist Morag Gordon, in a project for the Gateshead Garden Festival 1990. An engraved [sandblast] glass panel incorporating poetry for which I supplied the lettering, introduced me to the processes that made it possible for me to use glass as a medium of expression.

CV

Born 1944 Watford, Herts, UK
Studied Fine Art Sculpture & Painting 1963-1977
Practice Calligraphy, Lettering & Illumination 1977-1990
Humanities BA [Hons 1st ]
Studio Glass & Letter Carving 1990- the present

COLLECTIONS

Victoria & Albert Museum
National Museum of Scotland
Northlands Creative , Wick, Scotland
Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead
Sunderland Museum
British Glass Foundation, Stourbridge

BOOKS / EXHIBITIONS

Please refer to my website

CURRENT

Peter Furlonger is a practising lettering artist glass engraver
who has lived in the North East of England since 1974.
His currently lives in a small wooden hut in the wilderness of Northumberland,
surrounded by trees and animals both bipedal and quadrupedal, domestic and wild.