Close
A catalogue to accompany the exhibition A Journey Through Four Decades, November 2019
The Scottish Gallery is happy to be defined by its lifelong association with the work and life of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912–2004). A dedicated artist; an innovator in times of change (and chaos); a woman artist finally triumphant in a predominantly masculine world; an artist happy to be a Scotswoman but whose work transcends boundaries, real or imagined. In seeking the significant in a long professional life she discovered the emotional, what Mark Rothko pinned down as his only interest in making art, “to express basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.”
The astonishing late flowering of Willie as a colourist springs from this emotionalism, but was delivered, as always, with the acuity and judgement she had garnered over a lifetime.
We are delighted to offer this latest selection of her work from four decades and give thanks to Kate Downie, Dr. Isobel MacDonald and Geoffrey Bertram for their contributions to this catalogue.
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912–2004) was a leading member of the St Ives group of artists and made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of post-war British art. Last year, filmmaker and director Mark Cousins directed a new film A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, which is a cinematic immersion into Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s art and life. The film will be on general release in 2025. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, known as Willie, was born in St Andrews, Fife, on 8 June 1912. Determining while at school that she wanted to be an artist, she set her sights on Edinburgh College of Art, where she enrolled in 1932 and graduated with her diploma in 1937. At the suggestion of the College’s principal, Hubert Wellington, she moved to St Ives in 1940. Early on she met Borlase Smart, Alfred Wallis and Bernard Leach, as well as Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo who were living locally at Carbis Bay. Her peers in St Ives include, among others, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Roger Hilton, and John Wells. Barns-Graham’s history is bound up with St Ives, where she lived throughout her life. In 1951 she won the Painting Prize in the Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall Festival of Britain Exhibition and went on to have her first London solo exhibition at the Redfern Gallery in 1952. She was included in many of the important exhibitions on pioneering British abstract art that took place in the 1950s. In 1960, Barns-Graham inherited Balmungo House near St Andrews, which initiated a new phase in her life. From this moment she divided her time between the two coastal communities, establishing herself as a Scottish artist as much as a St Ives one. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was represented by The Scottish Gallery throughout her career. Important exhibitions of her work at the Tate St Ives in 1999/2000 and 2005, and the publication of the first monograph on her life and work, Lynne Green’s W. Barns-Graham: A Studio Life, 2001, confirmed her as one of the key contributors of the St Ives School, and as a significant British modernist. She died in St Andrews on 26 January 2004.
The Scottish Gallery exhibitions: 1956, 1960, 1981 (Festival), 1989 (London), 2016, 2019, 2022
Struggling to find that perfect gift? We have the solution! A Scottish Gallery Gift Voucher is the perfect gift for friends, family, customers and colleagues.
Own Art is a national initiative that makes buying contemporary art and craft affordable by providing interest-free credit for the purchase of original work.