The painting by artist Walter Goodin shows a scene in the former Rambla bakery at 54 Saturday Market, now the site of the Multi York furniture shop.

It is one of Goodin’s detailed workplace studies painted before the Second World War in 1939. It shows a baker making pork pies, but organisers of the exhibition are keen to know his identity and would like to hear from anyone who has any information about the painting.

Walter Goodin (1907-1992) also produced many landscape scenes of East Yorkshire and was a protege of renowned Beverley artist Fred Elwell.

An exhibition entitled ‘Walter Goodin: Above All the Sky’, will be held at Hull’s Ferens Art Gallery from September 27 to January 4, to mark the centenary of his birth.

The exhibition will transfer to Beverley Art Gallery early next year, and then to Sewerby Hall.

More than 120 of Goodin’s finest works have been gathered together by art historian Wendy Loncaster, whose books and exhibitions on Fred and Mary Elwell in 1993 and 2001 were very successful.

For the last five years she has been working with Malcolm Shields of Beverley, a local art historian and researcher who was a good friend of Walter Goodin.

Born in Hull, Goodin began his working life as a manual labourer and later became a railway porter and ticket clerk at Beverley Railway Station. He lived in Beverley for a number of years and latterly in Bridlington, where he painted many local scenes.

Mr Shields describeed Goodin as a ‘consummate’ artist.

“He was a brilliant technician in every way. He could paint anything, magnificent interiors, marine subjects, and panoramic lyrical landscapes,” he said.

One of his paintings of Beverley shows the skinning room at the former Hodgson Tannery and Mr Shields said over several years it had been possible to find the names of every single person on the picture.

The Rambla picture arrived unexpectedly at Beverley Art Gallery on loan from its owner in Torquay.

“We were very excited to see it because it is in a magnificent condition. The man who sent it to us told us it was Rambla, painted in 1938 to 1939, so it becomes one of Walter’s earliest interior works. We know the baker in the picture is making pork pies, but who is he? We want to find out this man’s name, and there may still be some people who worked at Rambla at the time.”

Mr Shields said they would also like to hear from anyone in Beverley interested in sponsoring the biography and catalogue of Goodin’s paintings produced for the exhibition.

Anyone with any information, or who is interested in sponsorship, should contact him by ringing (01482) 880813 or emailing Wendy Loncaster at wendy@loncaster.org.