BRUCE, Paul

1944 - 2022

Douglas Paul Bruce was born at Ipswich in 1944, son of Willliam Herbert Bruce (4 August 1900-1980), a Royal Navy cook at H.M.S. Ganges, and his wife Violet Mabel Florence Cook-Abbott (4 June 1903-8 November 1996), who married at Ipswich in 1928 and in 1939 were living at 22 Nottidge Road, Ipswich. Known as Paul Bruce, he studied at Ipswich School of Art 1960-1963, under the inspiration of Colin Moss, Lawrence Self, Bernard Reynolds and John Alfred Green. Paul was offered a place at St Martin's School of Art to study sculpture but decided to enter the fine art and antiques business, which he ran for some thirty years. In 1993, he had a one man show at the Haste Gallery in Great Colman Street, Ipswich entitled ‘The Deben and Beyond’ and staged exhibitions on board his boat ‘Windhaver’. His sunsets, especially from his mooring at Ramsholt, are remarkable and has exhibited some of these with the Royal Society of Marine Artists at the Mall Galleries in London, along with sculptures which have also been inspired by the river Deben. Early in 2000, he returned to full-time art, painting in oil, pastel and mixed media and sculpts in stone, wood, and direct plaster which he has exhibited in East Anglia as well as further afield including Ipswich Art Gallery in 2003. A member of the Ipswich Art Society, his paintings reflect his interest in the atmosphere and light of his native Suffolk landscape and his sculptures reflect the line of nature, refined by investigative drawings. Paul had been Chairman of the Friends of the Ipswich Museums and was their Vice-President at the time of his death and, having a deep interest in the Ipswich School of Art, together with Richard Scott authored a book on its history 'High Street Heyday' (2011) also authored 'The Furniture of Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich' (Gresham in 2019). He married in 1990, Susan C. Allen and they lived at The Old White House, Culpho, Ipswich. Douglas Paul Bruce died on 3 November 2022.

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Works by This Artist