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Peter Brook’s ‘Winter Wash Day’, with its hard-to-miss line of laundry, was sold at Tennants Auctioneers in Leyburn yesterday for £4,000 hammer. A 100cm by 80cm oil on canvas, the successful bidder has certainly got a lot of painting for their money.

Peter Brook’s ‘Classical Landscape - Scotland’ is part of a series of paintings featuring the Highlands. Inspired by his summer holidays north of the border, it is not surprising that snow scenes are much less in evidence than in his Pennine landscapes. (Sold by Bonhams in 2016)

In the 1980’s Peter Brook ‘discovered’ Lancashire, resulting in a series of over 40 paintings of the Trough of Bowland, including ‘Proctor’s Farm - Walls and Trees in Snow’, and culminating in an exhibition at The Inn at Whitewell in 1988. (Sold at Hartleys Auctioneers in 2010)

The sunrise was one of Peter Brook’s favourite subjects. Not something that most of us see at this time of year, ‘Cold Dawn - At 1200ft A.S.L’ with its sheltering sheep is a reminder of what it looks like on high ground in wintertime. (For sale Alex Reuben’s Gallery in Hale)

Peter Brook’s early West Riding work is an eclectic mix of paintings, generally categorised as Northern Art, but often colourful and nearly always light hearted. The street name above the shop in ‘Old Buildings’ would suggest a typically quirky view of his home town of Brighouse.

In contrast to the current spell of warm weather here’s ‘A Lane to an Empty Farm’. With fields carpeted in undisturbed white snow and the distant moors shrouded in mist it’s one of those Peter Brook paintings which makes you feel cold, even on one of the hottest days of the year.

Unsurprisingly Peter Brook and Shep didn’t make the long journey down to Stonehenge to see the sun rising over the Heel Stone on the occasion of the Summer Solstice. No doubt they were happier closer to home, ‘Watching the Sun Rise in the Pennines’. And in winter too of course!

‘The Last Farm before the Moor’ was a theme to which Peter Brook returned often. Here the most striking feature of the painting is not so much the isolated building, still inhabited judging by the whiff of white smoke blowing from the chimney, but the spectacular, restless sky.

‘Snow Field’ is one of Peter Brook’s minimalist paintings, the simple fence in the foreground and the barely visible distant hedge line enclosing what is in effect an empty space, while the low horizon meets a pale featureless sky, with not even the usual hint of colour or light.

‘Working Dog - Resting’ is from the popular Peter Brook series featuring an incarcerated farmyard collie. Here the sheer size of the barn doors, in contrast to the diminutive head of the disconsolate dog, seems to add to its plight and to our sympathy. (Sold at Tennants in 2022)

Peter Brook had his first one-man show at the prestigious London Gallery, Agnew’s, in 1969. A turning point in his career, Pennine landscapes like ‘Evacuated Farmhouse - Dene Head Valley’, featured on the front of the catalogue, were now in great demand. (Sold by Bonhams in 2010)

Peter Brook did not paint ‘en plein air’, relying for preliminary source material on photographs taken in the field and producing the finished piece, like ‘Working Outside in Winter’, under artificial light back at home in his studio. (From AC Gallery’s 2022 annual exhibition)

Peter Brook’s early work was often very colourful. ‘Birds Royd - Snow’, from 1960, a view of mill workers knocking off on a winter’s evening could so easily have portrayed a gloomy scene, but instead is an almost impressionist mix of strong vibrant hues. (The Hepworth, Wakefield)

Peter Brook liked Mondays when the traditional lines of laundry appeared, strung out to dry across roads like ‘Fountain Street’ in Sowerby Bridge and providing a splash of colour against the dark Victorian terraced houses. (From Rodney Bewes’ collection, sold by Bonhams in 2012)

‘July - After the Gala’ features one of Peter Brook’s favourite summer subjects, the traditional show tent with its distinctive shape, which was a common site at local agricultural fairs. (From the ‘Twelve Months of the Year’ series of lithographs, published by Agnew’s in 1978)

In ‘Drifting’ Peter Brook creates the feel and atmosphere of a harsh winter’s day. It is not just the deep snow, a perennial hazard for sheep on high ground sheltering against a wall, which creates the mood, but the ominous grey sky too, suggesting worse weather is on its way.

‘Simply a Ruin’ is a typical Peter Brook subject portrayed in an unconventional composition, the abandoned building dominating the painting and allowing only a limited view of the horizon, where Peter and Shep can be seen walking into the distance. (Sold Wilson55 Auctioneers & Valuers in 2021)

‘Unfounded Apprehension at Dusk’ is one of Peter Brook’s more enigmatic paintings, leaving us to ponder why the ewe appears to be staring anxiously out of the picture. Whatever, it is the spectacular evening sky which steals the show. (From AC Gallery’s 2024 autumn exhibition)

By the late 1970’s Peter Brook had established a considerable collector base and a reputation for atmospheric Pennine snow scenes, like ‘Edge of the Wood’, enabling him to retire early from school teaching to become a full-time artist. (Sold by Hartleys Auctioneers in 2015)

‘Out on a Monday with a View of Stoodley Pike’ from 2000 is one of the best known of Peter Brook’s later paintings. Full of trademark details and motifs, the eye is drawn to the prominent hilltop monument and spectacular evening sky. Typically there’s a washing line in there too.