Alf Stockham: visionary intensity Alfred Stockham, the artist and teacher, who has died aged 87, was a gifted painter in oils whose work never quite achieved the popularity and acclaim it deserved. Tending to work on a small scale, he made highly individual, well-designed, distinctively textured and patterned paintings, often of lyrical and visionary intensity. Intelligent, warm-hearted and generous-spirited, he had an ability to keep surprising his audience. Although there were certain subjects he favoured, such as boats and the beach, he would vary his interpretation from abstraction to broad-brushed realism, but always articulated with great conviction. His early work demonstrated abilities as a draughtsman of almost Pre-Raphaelite ingenuity, and his paintings followed this rigorous structuring, or moved towards the intimism of Bonnard and Vuillard. But as he grew older, his keynote was simplicity: buildings and trees, even people, were painted as evocative shapes rather than outlined in realistic detail.