When the Antiques Roadshow team visited Powis Castle and Garden in Wales on the BBC programme, expert Grant Ford examined a colourful painting with an interesting backstory. During the episode, the guest brought in a painting of a Scottish scene that she had picked up in a charity shop. They explained that after having a family holiday to the Highlands of Scotland, she and her family were driving back to their home in Shropshire.
However, soon the rain started coming down and she didn’t have any raincoats for her children, who were aged 10 and 12 at the time. So, she decided to stop off at the nearest charity shop to see if they had any raincoats. The guest joked: “I didn’t get a raincoat, I got a painting,” to which Grant replied: “Gosh, I wish I was there before you.
” The expert admitted that the oil-on-canvas painting was a “confident colourist” style, “clearly signed lower-right Cunningham". After asking if she had found out any more about the artist, the guest admitted that she had done a “wee bit of research". She explained: “On the back it told me that he was a Glasgow artist, who studied at the Glasgow School of Art.
He was born the same year as my own mum, so 1926.” Grant concurred with this, while he added: “He was very much sort of born and bred in Lanarkshire but centred in Glasgow.” The artist, John Cunningham, “taught a great deal and then when he retired from the Glasgow School of Art as a teacher and a senior lecturer, he became a.