WILHELMINA BARNS -G RAHAM

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Above left: WBG working in Barnaloft Studio, 1988 Cover image (detail) (Photo - David Crane) Catalogue written and published by Waterhouse & Dodd Construction in Space, 1989 Above right: Introductory text by Michael Bird, copyright of the author Acrylic on paper ‘WBG in her 1 Porthmeor Studio, St Ives 1946-7 Printed by ArtQuarters Press 22.5 x 30 in / 57 x 76.5 cm (photographer unknown) All images copyright of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust WILHELMINA BARNS -G RAHAM

An exhibition of paintings and works on paper from the collection of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust

7th June - 7th July 2017

WATERHOUSE & DODD 47 Albemarle Street London W1S 4JW +44 (0)20 7734 7800 [email protected] www.waterhousedodd.com ‘A lot about life’: Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

‘I never went for anything I was successful at,’ Wilhelmina Barns-Graham reflected in her early eighties. ‘I was always experimenting.’ Over the next ten years she would continue to experiment, launching into her most impulsive, intuitive use of abstract colour yet in the ‘Scorpio’ series of acrylic paintings and prints [illus p.45-49]. This was a time in her life when she felt that ‘things started to flow’, and her work ‘became more loose and [with] stronger colour and more assured.’ I’d call that success; but – as can happen for artists in the final decade of a long career – Barns- Graham felt that the best was still to come.

She was working part of the year in , where she had grown up and later inherited a house, and at other times in St Ives. After training at School of Art, she first arrived in west 1940 and would make her reputation there alongside contemporaries such as and . ‘I look on myself as a St Ives artist, not a Scottish artist,’ she insisted, with the proviso that ‘I always think I'm much more international than just St Ives. I don't believe in these groups of schools.’

From the 1960s onward Barns-Graham often worked in clearly defined series, which cross and recross the boundaries between ‘schools’. The loose, gestural abstraction of the ‘Scorpio’ series was preceded by the ‘very calculated and hard-edged’ ‘Expanding Forms’ [illus p.27], in which slim sheaves of arrow shapes ride on an atmospherically tonal ground, evoking ‘sea movements, sand movements’ interpreted ‘on a mathematical basis’.

Above: House in St Ives, Cornwall, 1945 Gouache on paper 52.5 x 36.5 cm Right: Clodgy Walk, 1998 Acrylic on paper 57.5 x 76.5 cm

Before this had come a long series, running through the later 1960s and 1970s, of compositions based on tumbling configurations of squares then circles, intensified by the vivid sparring of complementary colours. In paintings such as Red and Orange on Yellow or Blue Disks on Vermilion [illus p.14 & 17], with their light frisson of opticality, Barns-Graham acknowledged her debt to Bridget Riley. As often in her work, however, the urge to develop an initial experiment into a sustained sequence of variations arose from more personal sources.

It struck her that her fascination with ‘Things of a kind in order and disorder,’ with myriad, almost uniform shapes ‘touching each other, some knocking each other’, was somehow connected to her ‘broken marriage’ (she and her husband David Lewis had divorced in 1960). ‘And that taught me the importance of what these things did, how they moved … what position they got into, how it 3 affected the others all round them, and I realised that this is what happens in life.’

In the early days in St Ives, Barns-Graham had encountered two artists who ‘affected the others all round them’. encouraged her gift for drawing, while Naum Gabo taught her to look into the crystalline heart of spatial forms. She always felt that she was ‘fortunate in having such friendships’. With its abraded translucency and cusped, pale geometries, Autumn Rocks [illus p.7] develops an approach to abstraction that began with these friendships. At the same time, it’s an emotional meditation on landscape that would be echoed, decades later in a more figurative idiom, in works such as Untitled (Orkney) [illus p.41]. If ‘success’ meant arriving at a particular strategy, a settled personal style, that would never be Barns-Graham’s way – because experiment and life experience went hand-in-hand. ‘I learned a great deal out of painting,’ she said. It had ‘taught me a lot about life’, while ‘life taught me about painting.’

Michael Bird - April 2017

Quotations from Wilhelmina Barns-Graham are taken from her interview with Tamsyn Woollcombe for National Life Stories Artists’ Lives, recorded in 1994. Study for Levant, 1954 Minack Cliff Theatre, Porthcurno, 1940 Oil on hardboard Gouache on paper 4.5 x 8 in / 12 x 20.5 cm 9.5 x 12 in / 23.5 x 30 cm 5 Porthmeor, 1954 Autumn Rocks, 1952 Oil on board Oil on wood panel 9 x 11.5 in / 23 x 28.5 cm 13.5 x 24 in / 34 x 60.5 cm 7 Nocturne, 1952 Oil on canvas 34 x 43.5 in / 86 x 111 cm 9 Autumn Landscape, 1958 Untitled (no.52), 1953-60 Gouache on paper Gouache on paper 6 x 8.5 in / 14.5 x 22 cm 10.5 x 17 in / 27 x 43 cm 11 Top left: Untitled (Linked Forms Series), circa 1950 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 in / 40.5 x 50.5 cm

Left: View of St Ives harbour, circa 1942 Painted on the reverse of the above painting

Right: Untitled (Linked Forms Series), 1959-60 Oil on canvas 14 x 18 in / 35.5 x 45.5 cm 13 Top left: Untitled (Meditation) 28/64, 1964 Oil on hardboard 5 x 7.5 in / 12.5 x 19 cm

Left: Red on Orange and Lemon, 1967 Oil on hardboard 7 x 10 in / 18 x 25.5 cm

Right: Emerald and Cadmium Green, 1971 Oil and acrylic on hardboard 16 x 24 in / 40.5 x 61 cm 15 Green and White Disks on Turquoise – Wind on Waves Series No.1, 1970-71 Blue Disks on Vermillion, 1967 Oil and acrylic on hardboard Oil on wood panel 7 x 10 in / 17.5 x 25 cm 10 x 13.5 in / 25.5 x 35 cm 17 Green Square on Black and White, 1963 Oil on canvas 50.5 x 40 in / 128 x 102 cm 19 Meteors, 1962-64 Untitled (Tumbling Squares), Circa 1962 Oil and acrylic on hardboard Mixed media on canvas 7 x 9.5 in / 18 x 24 cm 36 x 28 in / 91 x 71 cm 21 Untitled (Family Series), 1967 Gouache on paper 22.5 x 31 in / 57.5 x 78.5 cm 23 Lilac Edge, 1970 Two Pairs Complementaries of Equal Amount, 1970 Gouache on paper Oil on canvas 20.5 x 21 in / 52.5 x 53 cm 48 x 48 in / 122 x 122 cm 25 Expanding Forms (Coast): Touch Point Series (No.6), 1981 Oil on canvas 60 x 60 in / 152 x 152 cm 27 Expanding Forms (Small Lemon), 1980 Movement over Sand – Touchpoint Series, circa1980 Gouache on paper Gouache on paper 9.5 x 9.5 in / 24 x 24 cm 22.5 x 20.5 in / 57 x 52 cm 29 Expanding Red Orange and Green on Black, 1980 Oil on hardboard 26 x 36 in / 65.5 x 88.5 cm 31 Bridal Party 2, 1987 Number 5 (Tribute Series), 1982 Oil on hardboard Oil and pencil on hardboard 15.5 x 21 in / 39 x 53 cm 30 x 41 in / 76 x 104.5 cm 33 Progressive Movement, 1980 Oil on cardboard 14.5 x 21 in / 37 x 53 cm 35 Top left: Glacier Grindelwald, 1977 Gouache on paper 23.5 x 30 in / 60 x 75.5 cm

Below left: Glacier Grindelwald, 1947 WBG scaling the glacier c/o the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust Image © P.N.Bretherton

Right: Construction in Space, 1989 Acrylic on paper 22.5 x 30 in / 57 x 76.5 cm 37 Left: Warbeth 3, 1985 Acrylic on paper on hardboard 21 x 7 in / 53 x 17.5 cm

Right: Untitled (Orkney), 1988 Oil on hardboard 21.5 x 33.5 in / 39.5 x 85 cm 41 Cathedral St Andrews (Old Tree), 1979 Pencil and wash on hardboard 21 x 15.5 in / 53.5 x 39 cm 43 Scorpio series 3 No 10, 1997 Acrylic on paper 22.5 x 30 in / 57 x 76.5 cm

Top left: Untitled (White spiral), 1999 Acrylic on paper 11.5 x 15 in / 29 x 38 cm

Left: Untitled, 1998 Acrylic on paper 12 x 15.5 in / 30 x 39 cm

Right: Scorpio series 1 No. 12, 1998 Acrylic on paper 22.5 x 30 in / 56.5 x 76.5 cm 47 Untitled - Scorpio series, 1996 Acrylic on paper 22.5 x 30 in / 57 x 76.5 cm

WILHELMINA BARNS -G RAHAM

A brief chronology

1912 Born 8 June, St Andrews, 1932-37 , Diploma course (Painting) DAE 1940 Moved to Cornwall. Rented No. 3 Porthmeor Studios 1942 Became member of Newlyn Society of Artists and St Ives Society of Artists 1945 Moved into No. 1 Porthmeor Studios 1946 First meetings of Crypt Group in her studio 1949 Worked on glacier drawings and gouaches in Switzerland Founder member of the Penwith Society of Arts Resigned from the St Ives Society of Artists 1951 Worked in Italy and Scilly Isles 1954 Worked in Tuscany 1955 Worked in Tuscany, Calabria and Sicily Visited Paris - met Poliakoff, Istrati and Michel Seuphor, visited studios of Brancusi, Arp, Giacometti and Pevsner 1956-57 On staff of School of Art 1958 Worked in France, Spain and the Balearics 1960 Inherited Balmungo estate, near St Andrews 1966 Visit to Amsterdam, The Hague, Delft and Rotterdam 1984-85 Working in Orkney 1989-90 Working in Lanzarote 1991-92 Working in Lanzarote 1992 Received Honorary Doctorate, University of St Andrews 1987 Establishes Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust 1999 Elected Honorary Member RSA and RSW 2000 Received Honorary Doctorate, University of Plymouth 2001 Awarded CBE Awarded Honorary Doctorate, University of Exeter 2003 Awarded Honorary Doctorate, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh 2004 Died 26 January, St Andrews Solo Exhibitions (in her lifetime)

1947/49/54 Downing Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall 1949/52 Redfern Gallery, London 1951 St Ives Festival 1954 Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London 1956/59/60/81 Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1957 City Art Gallery, Wakefield 1968 Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh 1971 Marjorie Parr Gallery, London 1976 Wills Lane Gallery, St Ives 1978 The New Art Centre, London 1982 The Crawford Centre, St Andrews 1984 The , Orkney 1989 Scottish Gallery, London 1989-90 W. Barns-Graham Retrospective 1940 - 1989 , touring: 51 Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance; City Art Centre, Edinburgh; Perth Museum and Art Gallery; Crawford Art Centre, St Andrews; Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr 1992 W. Barns-Graham Drawings , Crawford Art Centre, St Andrews and The Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro 1992-3 W. Barns-Graham at 80 , William Jackson Gallery, London touring to Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie; Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal; Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter; Dundee Art Gallery & Museum; Wakefield Art Gallery 1995/97/99/02 Art First, London 1996-7 The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 1999-2000 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: An Enduring Image , Tate Gallery St Ives 2001 The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 2002-04 W.Barns-Graham: Painting as Celebration , Crawford Art Centre, St Andrews, travelling to Aberdeen Art Gallery; Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield; City Art Gallery and Museum, York; Peter Scott Gallery, ; Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull; Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie; Hawick Museum Selected Group Exhibitions (in her lifetime)

1935 - 43* Society of Scottish Artists, Edinburgh 1941/44/86/88 Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh 1942 - 99* Newlyn Society of Artists 1942 - 49* St Ives Society of Artists 1945 - 46 St Ives Society of Artists , travelling exhibition in UK and South Africa 1946 Living Artists , National Gallery of Scotland 1947/48 Crypt Group, St Ives 1949 - 99* Penwith Society of Arts, St Ives 1951 Danish, British and American Abstract Artists , Riverside Museum, New York 1953 International watercolour exhibition , Brooklyn Museum, New York 1954 British Painting and Sculpture , Whitechapel Art Gallery, London Art from the South West , Arts Council touring exhibition 1955 Seven Scottish Artists , Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition Annual exhibition, City Art Gallery, Bradford Abstract Art 2 , Milan (invited artist) 1960 Painters from Cornwall , Plymouth City Art Gallery Contemporary Scottish Artists , Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition in Canada International exhibition of works in gouache , New York British Watercolours , Waddington Gallery, London (tour to Sweden) 1977 British Artists of the 60s , The Tate Gallery, London 1981/83 Contemporary Art from Scotland , The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh (SAC tour) 1982 Art from Cornwall , Galerie Artica, Cuxhaven 1984 Homage to , University of Kent, Canterbury 1985 St Ives 1939-64 , The Tate Gallery, London 1986 Forty years of Modern Art , The Tate Gallery, London 1988 The Experience of Landscape , Arts Council touring exhibition 1989/90 since 1900 , Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and tour to Barbican Art Gallery, London 1992 New Beginnings, Postwar British Art , Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art 1995 Porthmeor Beach: A Century of Images , Tate St Ives Friends Past & Present , Museum and Art Gallery 1998-2004* Royal Scottish Academy (RSA), Edinburgh 1998-2004* Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW), Edinburgh Later Exhibitions (Public Galleries)

2005 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Movement and Light Imag(in)ing Time , Tate St Ives 2007 Elemental Energies: the Art of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham , Trinity Hall, Cambridge A Different Way of Working’, Gateway Gallery , University of St Andrews Evolution: the Work of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham , Sherborne House, Sherborne, Dorset 2009-12 A Discipline of the Mind – The Drawings of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham , Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, and tour to Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds; Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery; Burton Art Gallery and Museum, Bideford, North Devon; Perth Art Gallery & Museum 2012-13 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: a Scottish artist in St Ives , Fleming Collection, London and City Art Centre Edinburgh A Different Way of Working. The Prints of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham , Inverness Museum & Art Gallery and tour to St Fergus Gallery, Wick; Iona Gallery, Kingussie; Gracefield Art Centre, Dumfries: Dick Institute, Kilmarnock 2015-16 The Prints of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham , Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art 2016 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: a Scottish artist in St Ives , Penlee House Art Gallery, Penzance 2016-17 A Different Way of Working: The Prints of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham , Beverley Art Gallery, 53 North Yorkshire; Burton Art Gallery and Museum, Bideford, Devon

Awards and Prizes

1951 St Ives Festival prize for painting 1955 Italian Government travelling award

* Indicates consecutive annual exhibitions A full CV and bibliography is available to view on our website Public Collections Leeds City Art Gallery Leeds Education Authority Aberdeen Art Gallery Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal London Borough of Camden Art in Healthcare, Scotland Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr Arts Council of Great Britain, London Manchester City Art Gallery Bank of Scotland Collection, London Michigan University Museum, USA Baring Brothers & Co. National Westminster Bank, London Birmingham City Museum & Art Gallery Newhall College, Cambridge British Council, London New South Wales Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia British Museum, London Nuffield College, Oxford Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London Pallant House, Chichester Contemporary Art Society, London Penwith Galleries, St Ives Cornwall Education Committee Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University Department of the Environment, London Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney Deutsche Bank AG Plymouth City Art Gallery Diamond Trading Co. Portsmouth City Art Gallery Dumfries & Galloway Council Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh Dundee Museum and Art Gallery Scottish Arts Club, Edinburgh Edinburgh City Art Centre Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh Edinburgh College of Art Sheffield Art Gallery Falmouth Art Gallery Southampton City Art Gallery Southampton University Ferens Art Gallery, Hull St Ives Borough, Cornwall Government Art Collection Tate Gallery, London Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries The Fleming Collection London Hawick Museum The Royal Collection Hertfordshire Education Authority Truro School Collection, Cornwall Highland Regional Council University of Dundee Hocken Library, University of Otago, New Zealand Hove Museum and Art Gallery University of St Andrews Isle of Man Arts Council University of Stirling Jerwood Gallery, Hastings Victoria and Albert Museum, London Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museums, Glasgow West Riding Education Authority (the former) Kettle's Yard, Cambridge Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester King’s College, Cambridge Wolverhampton City Art Gallery Kirkcaldy Art Gallery York Museum Trust WILHELMINA BARNS -G RAHAM

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