A new art collection celebrating 150 years of Alice in Wonderland is to be launched at Castle Galleries in Chester on Saturday (November 7).

Lost Alice is a new collection from surrealist artist Peter Smith, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s famous children’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871).

The series of six new oil paintings and four sculptures feature familiar characters including Alice, the Hatter, the Caterpillar and the White Rabbit.

Yet this ‘Wonderland’ is also unfamiliar – a place that is now under threat from Alice’s last visit when she left behind seven sins from the mortal world.

The collection, which tells its own story of Alice’s adventures, has taken the acclaimed artist nine months, 36kg of clay, 36 maquettes and more than 5,000 individually made objects to create.

Meet the artist

To accompany the new works, Peter Smith is writing a novel called Lost Alice – Wonderland Unwound. He will be at the gallery in Chester from 1-4pm on Saturday to reveal his new works.

Peter, who was signed by Birmingham based fine art publishers Washington Green in 2005, and is one of Castle Fine Art’s top selling artists, said: “We couldn’t ignore the fact that Alice in Wonderland celebrates its 150th birthday this year…be prepared to view a different kind of Wonderland; a Wonderland twisted and crafted around classic literature mixed with fairy tales through the eyes of a very different Alice.”

Gallery Manager for Castle Galleries Frances Woodhouse said: “Peter’s new collection invites the viewer into a wondrous world of surrealism and symbolism. Fans of the work can take pleasure in this collection on two levels; the expertly painted compositions – which Peter painstakingly built in clay before painting – and the story behind them.”

Originally from Mansfield, Nottingham, Peter Smith is a self-taught artist whose background in the fashion, media and advertising industries feeds into his artwork.

Peter Smith’s ‘Lost Alice’ collection is available to buy from Castle Galleries, Chester, 18 St. Michael’s Row, The Grosvenor Shopping Centre, CH1 1EF from Saturday, November 7. Costs start from £295 for sculpture and from £375 for canvas on board limited edition prints. Pieces can also be bought from Castle Galleries’ network of high street stores across the UK or online.