Page 7 - Art First: Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: 2014

A survey of important works 1945–1995

The exhibition Order and Disorder, which Art First presented
in 2009, outlined key develop ments in Barns-Graham’s paint ing

between 1965 and 1980. The state ment in an accom panying
brochure referred to that particular group of pictures as exem -
pli fy ing a distinc tive thread weav ing its way through her career.
The focus was on Barns-Graham’s dynamic use of colour and its

inter action with two simple geo metric forms–the square and
the circle. The selec tion of pic tures pre sented on this occasion
in 2014, expands and furthers the 2009 thesis in both directions.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham arrived in St Ives in 1940 after grad u -
ating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1937, where she was one
of a minor ity of women students, and counted Denis Peploe
and William Gear amongst her friends. Much of her paint ing
and drawing from the 1940s reflects the formal train ing she had
received at college in Scotland. An early drawing Old Mill (1938)
(shown right) for example reveals how Barns-Graham looked
at struc tures and organised forms and shapes from the start.
The buildings are consid ered for their mass, with generalised,
rather than specific archi tec tural detail, where the fall of light
and shade alternates across the picture surface.

In a striking gouache painted seven years later, Back Road West
(1945), a similar interest in build ing shapes is evident, espe cially
the description of the stone wall of the house on the right
where the main focus is on the visual movement in the pattern

of the stonework.The apparent random ness to the lay of stones
belies their carefully manipulated position ing in the painting;
a particu larly relevant inter vention when considering the float -
ing and tumbling shapes which charac ter ise the Order and
Disorder series of the 1960s.
Old Mill, 1938
oil, pen and ink and pencil on paper, 27 x 38 cm