THE ART OF PETER CUSHING

by Mabel Tarantino

Well known by everybody as the gentleman of horror, all of us admire Peter Cushing for his excellent acting, and he is undoubtedly one of the great masters of horror, but there's something that not many people know, and among these people I shall include myself before reading the Peter Cushing museum website, and it is that this excellent actor was also a painter, and a very good one I must say.

Before looking at his paintings you could imagine that, being done by Peter Cushing, they would have some gothic mysterious atmosphere about them and a dark palette. Well, if you thought that, you are completely wrong. Delicate watercolors with still lifes, involving marine pictures, delicious typical English gardens full of gold light and pastel colours in a quite distinctively personal style with an impressionist touch. All of them tell us a lot about the person who created them, a kind, quiet and serene personality that shows in each of the wonderful works he made.

He was for sure a sensitive artist, both in the movies and in paintings. Ten years after his death his films are still widely shown in every part of the world. For people in their thirties, like me, they remind us of our childhood, those Saturday afternoons enjoying some Frankenstein, Dracula or Sherlock Holmes films. For young audiences it's an opportunity to get in touch with a great actor, but that's not all; a sensitive artist, not Enough?; a gentleman, what more?; a good man mainly; and that's it.

Mabel Tarantino. Art critic. Copyright 2004