Wilhelmina Barns-Graham 23 North Sea, Fife 2, 1979 mixed media, 27 x 20 cms Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004) Paintings and Drawings 1952-2003 4 - 26 June 2007 1 Black Rocks, 1952 oil on board, 61 x 76 cms Foreword This will be the first show of work by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham in her native Scotland since her death in 2004. As a major British artist and a key figure in the St Ives School, she has long been represented in important survey exhibitions relating to modernism, abstraction and St Ives and has been the subject of major retrospectives at Tate St Ives and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Born in St Andrews, she graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1937 and moved to St Ives in 1940 where she soon became an important member of its lively community of forward-looking artists. Over the next 20 years she showed successfully in solo and group exhibitions in St Ives and Newlyn but also in London and America. Scotland, however, always remained a very important part of her life, art and exhibiting career, ever more so when she inherited a house near St Andrews in 1960. She soon settled into a routine of moving between her twin centres of St Andrews and St Ives, her Scottish retreat offering perhaps an opportunity to work and to reassess in a different milieu and atmosphere and under a different set of influences and inspirations. Her relationship with The Scottish Gallery was always close and productive. Her first exhibition with us in 1956 was followed by six further shows culminating in 2002 with her magnificent 90th birthday exhibition of recent work. She was also an enthusiastic contributor to our regular theme and annual group exhibitions while her later flourish of printmaking, including that with Graal Press in Roslin, helped bring her work to an ever-wider audience. This current exhibition, from the Barns-Graham Charitable Trust, covers over 50 years of exceptional creative activity including important oils from the fifties as well as paintings and a relief from the 1960s Squares series. There are also works from Movement in Space and Expanded Forms of 1980 and superb examples of the later Constellation and Scorpio series. A selection of a dozen smaller pen and ink-based compositions from a long-running Wave theme completes this impressive tribute to the artist. Robin McClure, May 2007 2 Brown, Grey & White, 1957 oil on canvas, 51 x 61 cms 3 Untitled, c, 1965 oil on canvas, 121 x 90.7 cms 4 Black and White Relief ‘Breakaway’, 1967 cryla & oil on hardboard, 41.2 x 50.8 cms 5 Wave 2, 1967-70 acrylic on hardboard, 61 x 61 cms 6 Family Series V(a) - Blue, 1976-82 oil on card, 19.7 x 27.4 cms 7 Family Series, December No. 7, 1981 oil on hardboard, 20 x 27 cms 8 Movement in Space, Dream Series No. 2, 1980 oil on canvas, 101.5 x 101.5 cms 9 Movement in Space No. 1, 1980 gouache on paper, 48 x 48 cms 10 Expanding Forms Series, 1980 acrylic on paper, 48 x 48.5 cms 11 Untitled, Painted Relief No.34, 1985 oil on card on hardboard, 58.5 x 78 cms 12 Untitled, Constellation Series, 1994 acrylic on Arches paper, 56.5 x 76 cms 13 Untitled, 1995 acrylic on Arches paper, 56.5 x 76 cms 14 Untitled, 1995 acrylic on Arches paper, 56.5 x 76 cms 15 Scorpio Series 3, No.8, 1997 acrylic on Arches paper, 56.5 x 76 cms 16 Untitled, 2002 acrylic on paper, 20.5 x 20.5 cms 17 Blue Memory, 2002 acrylic on Arches paper, 56.8 x 76.8 cms 18 Wait, 2003 acrylic on canvas, 76.5 x 101 cms 19 Untitled, 2003 acrylic on paper, 16.5 x 20.5 cms 20 Untitled, 2003 acrylic on paper, 17 x 20.5 cms 21 Untitled, 2003 acrylic on paper, 20.5 x 20.5 cms 22 Flux, 1975 mixed media, 18 x 10.5 cms 24 Fly Over, 1979 mixed media, 27 x 20 cms 25 Spume Series No. 6: Ochre & White, 1979 mixed media, 23.5 x 27 cms 26 January Sea, 1979 mixed media, 18.8 x 20.8 cms 27 Untitled - Wave Movement, 1980 mixed media with pen & ink, 12.7 x 17.7 cms 28 Wind Song, 1980 mixed media, 26.5 x 19.5 cms 29 Untitled No. 37, 1980-88 mixed media with pen & ink, 23.1 x 27.2 cms 30 St Andrews Bay Series (Shower), 1981 mixed media, 19.5 x 26.5 cms 31 Seven Lines No. 2, 1982 oil with pen & ink, 19.5 x 26.7 cms 32 Confluence, 1984-87 oil with pen & ink on card, 15.5 x 22 cms 33 Linear Meditation 3, 1991 mixed media with pen & ink, 18.5 x 18 cms Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004) 1912 Born 8 June, St. Andrews, Fife 1932, 34-37 Edinburgh College of Art, Diploma course (Painting) 1940 Went to Cornwall 1949 Founder member of the Penwith Society of Artists 1960 Inherited a house near St. Andrews, Fife 1992 Awarded Honorary Doctorate, University of St. Andrews 1999 Honorary Member RSA and RSW and Scottish Arts Club 2000 Awarded 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 Selected Solo Exhibitions 1947/49/54 Downing’s Gallery, St. Ives, Cornwall 1949/52 The Redfern Gallery, London 1954 Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London 1956/59/60 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1957 City Art Gallery, Wakefield 1968 Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford 1970 Sheviock Gallery, Torpoint, Cornwall Park Square Gallery, Leeds 1971 Marjorie Parr Gallery, London 1976 Wills Lane Gallery, St Ives 1978 The New Art Centre, London 1981 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh LYC Museum and Art Gallery, Cumbria The Byre Theatre, St Andrews 1982 The Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews Henry Rothschild Exhibition, Germany 1984 The Pier Arts Centre, Orkney 1987 Gillian Jason Gallery, London 1988/90 Ancrum Gallery, Roxburghshire 1989 The Scottish Gallery, London 1989-90 Retrospective exhibition, touring: Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance, City Art Centre, Edinburgh; Perth Museum and Art Gallery; Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews 1992 Drawings, Crawford Arts 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 Galleries and Museum, Dundee, Wakefield Art Gallery, Wakefield 1994 Drawings 1945 – 1960, Art First, London The Wolf at the Door, Penzance 1995 Art First, London 1996 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1996-7 The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 1997 Art First, London The New Millennium Gallery, St. Ives 1999 McGeary Gallery, Brussels Art First, London 1999-2000 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, An Enduring Image, Tate St. Ives 2001 W. Barns-Graham Prints, Exeter University Art First, London The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 2002-2004 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, Lancaster University; Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull; Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie 2002 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham – A Celebration at 90, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Wilhelmina Barns-Graham at 90: A Tribute from Art First, Art First, London 2004 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham 1912-2004: A Tribute- Recent Paintings and New Prints, Art First, London 2005 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: New Prints, Art First, London Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Movement and Light Imag(in)ing, Tate St. Ives 2006 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004): Important Works from her Career, Art First, London 2007 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004): Paintings and Drawings 1952-2003, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Selected Group Exhibitions 1941/44/86/88 Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition, Edinburgh 1942-2003 Newlyn Society of Artists 1942-49 St Ives Society of Artists 1945 The Moderns, Castle Inn, St Ives 1945-46 St Ives Society of Artists , travelling exhibition in UK and South Africa 1945-7 Modern Artists , Downing’s Gallery, St.Ives 1946 Living Artists , National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh 1947/48 Crypt Group, St Ives 1949-2004 Penwith Society of Arts, St Ives 1951 British Abstract Art, Gimpel Fils, London Danish, British and American Abstract Artists, Riverside Museum, New York 1953 International Watercolour Exhibition , Brooklyn Museum, New York Artists of Fame and Promise , Leicester Galleries, London 1954 British Painting and Sculpture , Whitechapel Art Gallery, London 1955 Seven Scottish Artists , Scottish Arts Council, touring exhibition Abstract Art 2 , Milan (invited artist) 1960 Contemporary Scottish Artists , SAC touring exhibition of Canada International Exhibition of Works in Gouache , New York British Watercolours , Waddington Gallery, London (tour to Sweden) 1969 Painting 1940-1949 , Scottish Arts Council touring Edinburgh 1973-89 Wills Lane Gallery , St Ives 1977 British Artists of the 60’s , The Tate Gallery, London 1978 Painters in Parallel , Scottish Arts Council (Festival Exhibition) 1979-2003 New Craftsman Gallery, St Ives 1980 St. Ives Summer Festival Exhibition , Penwith Galleries, St. Ives 1981/83 Contemporary Art from Scotland , The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh and touring 1982 Art from Cornwall , Galerie Artica, Cuxhaven, Germany 1984 Homage to Herbert Read , University of Kent, Canterbury 1985 St Ives , 1939-64, The Tate Gallery, London 1987 Aspects of Landscape , Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition 1988 The Experience of Landscape , Arts Council touring exhibition The Scottish Painter Abroad, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1988/9 Freeing the Spirit, Contemporary Scottish Abstraction, Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews 1989 A Century of Art in Cornwall 1889-1989 , The County Museum