Byron's Bear exhibition at the Paragon Gallery, Cheltenham

This year marks the bicentenary of the death of the English poet Lord Byron. Artist PJ Crook MBE has been inspired to create an exhibition of paintings based on the story of his pet bear

Byron's Bear, an exhibition at the Paragon Gallery in Cheltenham by the artist PJ Crook MBE, imagines an unusual relationship in the life of Lord Byron.

The show, which opens on October 4 and coincides with the Cheltenham Literature Festival, takes its title from the story of how the romantic poet kept a tame bear while he was a student at Trinity College in Cambridge, because the educational establishment's rules forbade students from bringing dogs.

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, lived between 1788 and 1824 and is regarded as being among the greatest of the English poets.

Along the canal (Image: PJ Crook) His best-known works include the lengthy narratives Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage along with shorter pieces such as Hebrew Melodies.

Born in London, Bryon led a colourful life and was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as 'made, bad and dangerous to know'. He spent many years in Europe, including seven years in Italy. He fled England, never to return, in 1816 due to his debts and the rumours over his relationship with his half sister. Later on he took part in the Greek War of Independence to fight the Ottoman Empire, an action for which he's revered as a folk hero by the Greek people, and died at the age of 36 while leading a campaign after contracting a fever.

Cotswolds-based PJ has sought to imagine the companionship between Byron, his bear and other animals in his menagerie in a series of paintings.

'Byron's Bear' is particularly inspired because this year remembers the bi-centenary of Byron's death,' PJ explains

Artist PJ Crook in her studio (Image: PJ Crook) 'Byron also visited Cheltenham in 1812 where I was fascinated to learn he met the great clown/actor Joseph Grimaldi, of whom, early in my career, I made a silk screen print and had included him in my student thesis.'

The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley visited Byron during the years he lived in Italy and wrote in his diary :

'Lord B’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it…

'P.S. I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective…I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane.'

The Bear in the Library (Image: PJ Crook) It's also known that Bryon had a honey badger, a fox, a tame wolf and a crocodile when he lived in Venice and Ravenna and that later he rescued two geese from a butcher’s block who followed him everywhere. His final beloved dog, Lyon, was with him even as he died in Greece.'