SPOTLIGHT on St Ives

From the Arts Council Collection
A new Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition
29 July – 09 September 2006, Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum

2006 is the 60th anniversary of the Arts Council Collection, the most exciting collection of post-war and contemporary British art in the world. The Hayward Gallery, which manages the Collection, is planning a year-long celebration, which includes the new touring exhibition Spotlight on St Ives, and culminates in a major show at the Hayward in September 2006.

Bringing together 25 paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture from the Arts Council Collection, Spotlight on St Ives explores three decades of art inspired by the landscapes of West Cornwall. Starting with Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, the exhibition introduces other artists who worked in Cornwall in the post-war years, including well-known figures such as Terry Frost, Peter Lanyon and Roger Hilton. Spotlight on St Ives opens at the Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea on 30 April 2006, before embarking on a national tour.

The artists who were associated with the St Ives school worked in a diverse range of media and styles, united primarily by the unique light and landscape that informed their work. Ben Nicholson moved to St Ives with Barbara Hepworth in 1939, having ten years earlier ‘discovered’ the work of local artist Alfred Wallis, whose works such as Trawler (1925) awoke in him a new sense of simplicity. Hepworth was also profoundly affected by their new surroundings, with sculptures such as Spring (1966) drawing inspiration from the land and ancient stones.

Hepworth and Nicholson were central to the growing artistic community, and a number of younger artists, including Terry Frost, John Milne and Denis Mitchell, worked as Hepworth’s studio assistants. In Red, Yellow and Blue (1962), Frost evokes the experience of walking along the quayside, seeing moored boats rocking against each other: ‘It is the sensation’, he explained ‘you don’t copy it.’

Other artists sought alternative viewpoints from which to experience the landscape. This led Peter Lanyon to take up gliding, and Soaring Flight (1960) is one of several works that describe the sensation of flight. Similarly, Bryan Wynter’s series of paintings from the mid-1950s were inspired by his canoe outings, exploring new perspectives related to the experience of moving on or below water.

In the post-war years, others came to join the thriving community. Roger Hilton was a regular visitor from the mid 1950s, eventually settling in St Just in 1965. His freely painted, highly personal abstract shapes take their inspiration from the body as much as the landscape. Confined to bed during his final years, he produced a series of lively gouaches, many of which provide a witty and bleak comment on his predicament.

Patrick Heron settled permanently in Zennor in 1955, drawing inspiration from the visual experiences directly around him, with the colours and circles in paintings such as Ultramarine, Cinnamon and Dull Yellow (1960) relating to the boulders and flowing shrubs in his impressive garden.

The art produced in St Ives during the 1940s, 50s and 60s went far beyond the provincial, with many of the artists achieving international success. Spotlight on St Ives illustrates the variety of ways in which a diverse group of artists responded to the unique Cornish landscape, producing some of the most innovative and influential art in twentieth-century Britain.

For future tour dates and venues, visit (link will open in a new window) www.hayward.org.uk