Peter Cameron: Artistic Convictions

“It is while working on this project, more than any other, that I have really learned the value of creativity. Peter’s experience shows how art can turn a life around, can provide a new start and can create a new degree of hope and purpose.” – David Wootton

Our first ever exhibition at the Koestler Arts Centre was a huge success – we were delighted to celebrate the work of long-term friend of Koestler Arts (and the inspiration for our Mentoring programme) Peter Cameron.

The exhibition also set the stage for a celebratory moment: the publication of a monograph on Peter Cameron, written by David Wootton – you can purchase it on our shop here. We invited David to reflect on the experience, from his first contact with Koestler Arts to packing down the exhibition, in the piece below.

It has been a great pleasure for me to work with Koestler Arts on an exhibition to launch the publication of my monograph on Peter Cameron, one of Britain’s most successful ‘prisoner-turned-artists’. The new Koestler Arts Centre was an ideal venue for such an exhibition, as Peter first gained recognition in the early 1990s through the awards that he received for his contributions to exhibitions organised by Koestler Arts. Following his release in 1992, he worked for Koestler, participating in many aspects of the preparation of the exhibitions, and became a trustee and later a category judge. As a result, he also helped serve as the inspiration for Koestler Arts’s mentoring programme.

Early in the project, the project manager, Alison Brisby, and I contacted Koestler Arts and asked if it would be willing to endorse the book. We received a very positive response from both Fiona Curran, the CEO, and Sarah Matheve, its Director of Outreach and Involvement. Indeed, Sarah had already known Peter for several years, and had been introduced to him by Pauline Austin, her former colleague at the New Bridge Foundation, another charity that supports prisoners, and which agreed to endorse the book. Soon, Koestler also agreed to launch the book with an exhibition.

When Alison and I attended our first meeting at the Koestler Arts Centre, the team was still settling into its new purpose-built premises. We were lucky enough to be shown the old premises next door, a Victorian house that had once been the home of the governor of Wormwood Scrubs Prison. We relished the chance to see the building that Peter had worked in and had helped transform. At the same time, we were struck by the contrast between the two, in which the distinct, somewhat dark rooms of the former had been superseded by the light open space of the latter. Clearly, the new centre was better able to hold an exhibition and invite people in to see it – and our exhibition could demonstrate that potential.

Much of the hard work of putting the exhibition together was down to Alison. She had catalogued most of Peter’s work and had a better idea of what artworks would be available. I was involved in refining the selection, so that it provided an overview of Peter’s career and writing the supporting texts.

The task of installing the exhibition was left in the expert hands of Koestler Arts Director of Arts, Phoebe Dunn; her and her colleagues transformed the ground floor from a dynamic workspace – bursting with the creative entries to the forthcoming Koestler exhibition – into an orderly and inviting gallery.

When I arrived just an hour before the opening was due to take place, I was astonished by the result. Thirteen of Peter’s works, many large in scale, were beautifully hung across three walls to provide a summary of his extraordinary career – from the watercolour, À la carte, produced in prison soon after he discovered that he could paint, to the pastel, Eric’s RIP, exemplifying the loose and luminous late style that he has evolved in response to the symptoms of Parkinson’s. Cases beneath the windows displayed the certificates of his Koestler awards, photographs of him at work in his studio, and other illuminating items. Also, Jacinth Latta had made available a specially edited version of her film, Captive Freedom, showing Peter and the ways in which he was establishing himself as an artist following his release.

Seeing Peter sitting in his wheelchair, busily signing copies of the monograph, brought home exactly what we had achieved with both the book and the exhibition. There had been times when Peter thought that he wasn’t going to make it to the launch, and now we were together founding his legacy. The opening confirmed that feeling, in the celebratory atmosphere and the lively chatter of the guests. Peter was seeing some friends for the first time in years, while I was meeting many of them for the first time ever – and still learning new things about him. It was a joyful and moving occasion made poignant by Peter’s valiant determination to join Sarah and me in speaking to all those assembled.

Though the exhibition ran for just a week, it had many visitors, not least on the Saturday, when the Koestler Arts Centre participated in the Open House Festival. I helped man the exhibition for a few hours on that day, and was able to introduce Peter’s art to some highly responsive members of the public, ranging from law graduates to young children. It was great to see how well they reacted to the images themselves and the stories behind them.

Though it was sad to be dismantling the exhibition after such a short run, it was heartening to hear from Sarah and others how it had remained popular and had encouraged sales of the book. It has already had the effect of encouraging Peter’s fellow artists at his studio in Liverpool to mount a display of his prints. And it has strengthened our determination to mount a larger exhibition of his original work in his adoptive city.

It is while working on this project, more than any other, that I have really learned the value of creativity. Peter’s experience shows how art can turn a life around, can provide a new start and can create a new degree of hope and purpose. It also demonstrates how art can sustain a person through serious illness. Much of this was understood by Arthur Koestler, who, more than six decades ago, established Koestler Arts to encourage the creativity of prisoners, and it is entirely fitting that Peter’s achievement should have been honoured at its centre.

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The exhibition, ‘Peter Cameron: Artistic Convictions’, was held at the Koestler Arts Centre between 19 and 25 September 2025. The related book, by David Wootton and Peter Cameron, is published by Sansom and Company, available to purchase from Koestler Arts’ website.