A LISS artist has reunited with a former colleague to create an exhibition more than 50 years in the making.

Bruce Russell isn’t usually one to get first night nerves as the painter has held around 20 exhibitions during his long career.

But a surprise reunion and subsequent link-up with one of his oldest friends and counterparts changed that.

“I’m actually a little bit nervous about the exhibition,” said Bruce, who has joined forces with Peter Pilgrim to hold the exhibition in Haslemere Museum.

“It’s because I’ve formed this partnership with Peter and it’s the first time I’ve been in a partnership, so I’ve been going through in my head how we can divvy up the space.

“I’m used to filling up spaces on my own so this is very different, but it’s a very interesting space.”

The exhibition of Recent Abstract Paintings by Pilgrim and Russell opens on October 9.

It will run at the High Street venue until October 21, with a private viewing taking place on October 12.

The story of how Russell and Pilgrim progressed from being long lost friends to artistic partners is as interesting as their artwork.

They started off as figurative painters in the early 1960s and later both held academic posts at the Chelsea School of Art.

They specialise in graphic and fabric design, respectively, and watched each other’s progress from afar until a chance meeting in the Spread Eagle a few years ago.

It felt like a reunion of long lost twins, especially as the artists learned their holiday homes in the Pyrenees are almost within a stone’s throw of each other.

They also share the same wider cultural influences while Bruce draws comparisons between their artwork and contemporary jazz and classical music.

“That balance of basic structure overlaid with unpredictable improvisation is essential for me,” said the West Liss artist, who is also a professor emeritus at Kingston University.

“Composers tend to develop their oeuvres serially – Peter and I demonstrate the habit as a defining trope of our work.”

Although Bruce has lived in East Hampshire for more than 30 years the Haslemere Museum exhibition is his first locally.

His work has been represented by four major London galleries and he’s taught at many art schools, notably St Martin’s.

Peter, from Chiswick, south west London, graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1970 and was awarded a silver medal for work of special distinction together with a research fellowship.  

His original education was primarily as a designer, but always combined with painting, drawing and sculpture. He believes, rather like the Bauhaus philosophy, that fine art and design are indivisible.

His work has its foundations in abstract expressionism and in particular the Op Art movement of the 1960s.