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Postwar Modern New Art in Britain 1945-1965

Morning in Mykonos, 1960-61
Morning in Mykonos, 1960-61

A revelatory new take on art in Britain after the Second World War, a period when artists had to make sense of an entirely altered world.

Postwar Modern explores the art produced in Britain in the wake of a cataclysmic war. Certainty was gone, and the aftershocks continued, but there was also hope for a better tomorrow. These conditions gave rise to an incredible richness of imagery, forms and materials in the years that followed.

Focusing on ‘the new’, Postwar Modern features 48 artists and around 200 works of painting, sculpture, photography, collage and installation. It explores the subjects that most preoccupied artists, among them the body, the post-atomic condition, the Blitzed streetscape, private relationships and imagined future horizons. As well as reconsidering well-known figures, the exhibition foregrounds artists who came to Britain as refugees from Nazism or as migrants from a crumbling empire, in addition to female artists who have tended to be overlooked.

Morning in Mykonos, 1960-61 is one of five works by William Scott which can be seen at the exhibition. Continue reading “Postwar Modern New Art in Britain 1945-1965”

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Wiltshire on Paper: Post-War Prints from the Bath Academy of Art

8 January – 2 April 2022
Equals, 1972
Equals, 1972

Centred on the Bath Academy of Art in Corsham, the decades following the Second World War, saw an explosion of creative printmaking in this corner of Wiltshire. The first in a series of displays celebrating the Golder-Thompson Gift to Chippenham Museum, the exhibition will include works by Clifford & Rosemary Ellis, Gillian Ayres, Howard Hodgkin, William Scott and many more.

OPENING TIMES:

Monday – Saturday: 10.00am – 4.00pm

ADMISSION

Free entry

Chippenham Museum
9-10 Market Place
Chippenham
Wiltshire
SN15 3HF

Tel: +44 (0)01249 705020

E-mail: heritage@chippenham.gov.uk

Chippenham Museum : Exhibitions

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Hockney to Himid: 60 Years of British Printmaking

Benbecula, 1961-62
Benbecula, 1961-62
13 November – 24 April 2022

See six decades of British art through one versatile medium.

Including works by Edward Bawden, Peter Blake, Tracey Emin, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Chris Ofili, Grayson Perry, Rachel Whiteread, William Scott, amongst others, this extraordinary exhibition features over 100 prints by 90 different artists.

From wood engravings and etchings to lithographs and screenprints, printmaking enabled artists to expand their practice to explore new creative possibilities. Showcasing a wide range of artists, styles and techniques, this exhibition celebrates the extraordinary upsurge of printmaking from the 1960s to now.

Continue reading “Hockney to Himid: 60 Years of British Printmaking”

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Portrait of Northern Ireland Centenary exhibition

White Shapes Entering, 1973
12 October – 4 November 2021

Secretary of State Brandon Lewis has announced a major art exhibition to showcase Northern Ireland’s creative talent as part of the Northern Ireland Office’s Centenary programme. The Portrait of Northern Ireland: Neither an Elegy nor a Manifesto exhibition will feature over 100 artists who have explored perspectives of Northern Ireland’s people and landscapes from the 1920s until the present day.

Continue reading “Portrait of Northern Ireland Centenary exhibition”

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St Ives: Connecting Circles

William Scott, Pale Linear Still Life, 1975
31 July – 31 October 2021

The small Cornish harbour town of St Ives has always attracted artists because of its exceptional light and dramatic surrounding countryside.

But in the mid-20th century, it became more than a seaside retreat. It became a centre for modern art.

Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson moved there at the outbreak of the Second World War. They were later joined by others including William Scott, Patrick Heron, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Terry Frost and Denis Mitchell.

Continue reading “St Ives: Connecting Circles”

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OF THE EARTH Contemporary Ceramics and Glass from The Fitzwilliam Museum

William Scott, Cornish Landscape, 1952
25 June – 10 October 2021

The Heong Gallery welcomes back visitors with an exhibition of exceptional contemporary ceramics and glass from The Fitzwilliam Museum. Since the early twentieth century, The Fitzwilliam Museum has built a reputation for European ceramics and glass. Since 1997, gifts from Nicholas and Judith Goodison through the National Art Collections Fund have expanded the contemporary collection considerably, creating the foundations of one of the best museum collections of contemporary ceramics, glass, and other applied arts in Britain. Continue reading “OF THE EARTH Contemporary Ceramics and Glass from The Fitzwilliam Museum”

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St Ives: Movements in Art and Life

Sennen, 1950
Sennen, 1950
1 August – 19 September 2020

The Royal West of England Academy are delighted to re-open with three exhibitions exploring the work of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and her peers. Visits will need to be pre-booked. They request that all visitors wear a mask in the galleries and preferably in their public spaces. 

Discover how in 1939 St Ives became a temporary home to some of Britain’s most forward-thinking abstract artists fleeing the dangers of the Second World War. Continue reading “St Ives: Movements in Art and Life”

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St Ives: Movement in Art and Life video tour

Cornish Harbour, 1951
Cornish Harbour, 1951

The exhibition St Ives: Movement in Art and Life featuring William Scott’s Sennen, 1950 and Cornish Harbour, 1951 would have opened at the Royal West of England Academy in March.  However, due to the coronavirus closures it had to been postponed.

Supported by Arts Council England, the Royal West of England Academy has taken the opportunity to create a video tour of the exhibition, whilst closed to the public, which can be viewed below.

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William Scott Event at the Anita Rogers Gallery

Black, Yellow and White Composition, 1953

Black, Yellow and White Composition
1953
Oil on canvas
101.8 × 127.3 cm / 40 × 50 in

Undated, it was one of the paintings Scott showed at the São Paulo Bienal that opened in September 1953. Although there is always the possibility that it was painted in the winter of 1952, it seems more likely to date from the first half of 1953, a period when Scott was increasingly preoccupied with what he called ‘more linear forms of structure’ with ‘square forms that could be descendants of earlier pictures’.  Here, the black rectangular form with a thin white vertical strip is a straight descendant of the earlier tabletops with a coffee pot. Continue reading “William Scott Event at the Anita Rogers Gallery”