26 August 2019 – 22 May 2020

Abstraction has roots in the physical world.  Meaning literally drawn from, the term abstraction suggests a source from which line, color, and shape emerge.  While many American artists of the postwar period moved increasingly toward a rhetoric of pure disembodied form, their British counterparts embraced a relationship to the landscape.  In particular, the fishing town of St. Ives, Cornwall became a magnet for artists including Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, and William Scott seeking inspiration from its coastal terrain, weather, and light.  Although thoroughly abstract, these works flicker with references to the horizon, deep space, crags, and boulders.  Their vibrant colors and geometric forms resonate with the experience of being grounded in time and space. Continue reading “British Abstraction: Three Views”

17 July – 9 August 2019

Sotheby’s is delighted to host an exhibition paying tribute to the émigrés who revolutionised Britain’s art and publishing worlds. Brave New Visions tells the story of the pioneering émigré art dealers who transformed the London gallery scene, introducing artists such as Naum Gabo, Oskar Kokoschka, Kurt Schwitters and Francis Bacon to post-war Britain. The vision of such influential dealers as Lea Bondi Jaray, Erica Brausen, Andras Kalman, Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer, Annely Juda and Charles and Peter Gimpel will be shown through key paintings and sculptures by the artists they championed. These include William Scott, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Gillian Ayres, Frank Auerbach, Lynn Chadwick and Graham Sutherland. Continue reading “Brave New Visions”

12 April – 18 August 2019

State Apartment Galleries, Dublin Castle
Office of Public Works

Isolated on the Western fringes of Europe it took time before the influence of early 20^th century European developments in art reached these shores. This exhibition explores the development of modernism in Ireland beginning in 1920, a period of political turmoil in this country and ends in the modern Ireland of 1960. It will contrast the traditional ‘Irish School of painting’ of the male dominated RHA favoured by de Valera and the new Irish Government to that of the European influenced art that was being championed by women artists such as Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone and Norah McGuinness amongst others through the Dublin Painters Society and the IELA exhibitions. Continue reading “The Birth of Modernism in Irish Art 1920-1960”

30 March – 6 July 2019

Home means different things to different people. Our relationship with our homes influences the way we think about ourselves and each other.

This Life is so Everyday reflects on social changes in British home lives between 1950 and 1980. It looks at how artists have used depictions of the domestic to signify our diverse experiences, question ideas of gender, class and sexuality, and represent some of the most intimate aspects of who we are.

See work by William Scott, John Bratby, Patrick Caulfeld, Helen Chadwick, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Anne Redpath, Su Richardson and more. Continue reading “This Life is so Everyday: The Home in British Art”

6 March – 26 August 2019

Opening on 6 March, Charleston’s second exhibition in the new Wolfson Gallery positions the work of former Charleston residents – Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) and Duncan Grant (1885-1978) – within a century of great British colourists, including William Scott.

Curated by London-based textile designer, Cressida Bell, granddaughter of artist Vanessa Bell, the exhibition will feature a broad-ranging and highly Continue reading “In Colour – Sickert to Riley”