On 17-April-2026 Isabelle Bark (class of 1993) & Hugo Shellabear (class of 1980) loaned a painting by Ted Roberts to Michael Hall School.  

The painting was given to Hugo on his 19th birthday by Dede and Peter Bark, and it has since hung in a number of their family homes, including Stafford Lodge, Michael Fields, Broadstone (the boarding house), and then back at Michael Fields. After 40 years, the family has decided to share it with the school community. It now hangs above the fireplace in the Great Hall of the Mansion.

Thank you for sharing this painting with us, for all to enjoy. 

Ted Roberts (1941-2020) was an Art teacher at Michael Hall School from 1965 - 2008 

-------------------------

Some further information about this painting: Talking with Susanna (Ted's daughter) at the recent Ted Roberts exhibition – this painting is of a series of about 10 paintings. 

Around 1979, Ted was invited to a Steiner School to teach in Australia, where he stayed for some months.

He became horrified on hearing about the early penal colonies where prisoners who had often only committed petty crimes at home, were taken and shipped in atrocious conditions from Great Britain to Australia.

Upon arrival, they were kept in hulks, which were floating prisons to serve their terms, and many tried to flee capture.

It is this flight that Ted was imagining in his paintings, the brutality of the landscape, the swamps they had to wade through, their heat and thirst. The horror of being on the run as a fugitive in an unforgiving land.

Ted Roberts Art for more of his work