Dupret Art

As a child in the UK,  traditional fairgrounds were a part of John DuPret’s life.  As well as visiting fairs in the summertime and public holidays, there was a “fixed” fairground only a bus-ride away from his home.  As a child he loved them for the sounds, the rides and the fun they offered, and as a young man he found them visually wonderful, and spent many afternoons and weekends taking photographs of pieces he considered iconic.  

These pieces included Gallopers, Boards, Dodgems, entire roundabouts.  He used many of these early photo-references in surreal paintings he created when living in New Zealand and Australia.

When he moved away from surreal imagery to photo-realism, he stopped using this Fairground imagery, as he became more and more influenced by the landscapes of Australia and New Zealand.

He moved back to England in the mid 1990’s and in 2016 visited Dingles Fairground Heritage museum in Devon, and photographed many of the traditional rides, horses, boards, and fairground organs he saw there.  And the passion for Fairground Art was burning again.

For John DuPret the term  “Fairground Art” covers everything from individual gallopers, roundabouts, dodgems, waltzers, and the beautiful fairground organs that once were part of life in the United Kingdom, and have now become a treasured heritage.

Slowly, new paintings and drawings are emerging, in a style he calls “hard edged realism” –all are examples of Fairground Art.