News 2011

News
 

The Two Roberts – Colquhoun and MacBryde

The 2011 Barns-Graham Charitable Trust Lecture
The Fleming Collection, 13 Berkeley Street, London W1J 8DU will
Monday 7 November, 6.30pm doors open, 7-8pm lecture

This year’s lecture will be given by Davy Brown who will describe how it came be that in attending the same art schools as Robert Colquhoun, though a generation later, this kindled a life-long passion for Colquhoun’s  work, and led to his acquisition of over 150 works by both Colquhoun and MacBryde. He will discuss those works upon which Colquhoun's reputation is built, and suggest that his graphic work, particularly in the form of his monotypes, deserves closer examination and greater recognition.
 

The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust is delighted to welcome the award winning Canadian poet Karen Solie as its third resident in the Residency programme. Karen’s visit to Balmungo House has been organised through the English Department at St Andrews University in a three year arrangement as St Andrews University Creative Writing Residency.

 

One of Willie’s late paintings is included in the Bohun Gallery’s exhibition ‘Small Paintings, Ceramics and Sculpture’ which runs from 6 December to 28 January 2012. If you are in the vicinity of Henley on Thames do drop by. The gallery is located at
15 Reading Road, Henley-on-Thames  RG9 1AB.

The Trust is delighted too to confirm the Bohun Gallery as one of the galleries working with the Trust representing Willie’s work. Solo exhibitions of Willie’s prints & paintings at the  gallery  in 2009 and earlier this year were very well received; there is clearly an appreciation for her work in the Thames Valley!
 

2012 is eagerly awaited as it is the centenary year of Willie’s birth. As part of the celebrations a series of exhibitions is planned for throughout the country. The full list will be published shortly but you may like to know that first up is ‘A Scottish Artist in St Ives’, curated by Lynne Green, taking place at the Fleming Collection Gallery, London between 10 January and 5 April. The exhibition examines Willie’s Scottish background and her time in Scotland, and how this determined the development of her art. An illustrated catalogue, written by the curator Lynne Green accompanies the exhibition.

Also coming imminently is the new, revised and expanded edition of Lynne Green’s pivotal biography ‘W. Barns-Graham: a studio life’. Originally published in 2001 this edition includes a new coda which reflects on the final three working years of Willie’s life. The book, published by Lund Humphries, is being released as a paperback and is priced at £25. Please contact the Trust to get your copy.
 

Earlier News
 
BALMUNGO HOUSE: The refurbishment at Balmungo House has nearly come to an end. The outstanding work pertains to the exterior which will be completed later in the summer.
 

RESIDENCIES: As well as the house taking on its new role as administrative centre for the Trust we have finally been able to launch our residency programme. The art writer Giles Sutherland is in situ and is staying at Balmungo House for a three month residency.

The second resident is an artist, Lorna McIntosh, who takes up her 3 month residency in July. Lorna’s residency comes as part of the RSA’s programme of Residencies for Scotland. The Trust has signed up to this programme which the RSA administers – the RSA selects the artists from their applications.
 
AUCTION: The Trust has submitted 9 pictures to an auction at Sotheby’s, London on May 25th. This collection of important paintings, with works ranging from a gouache of 1940 to a collage of 1983, and including a major  oil on canvas from 1950,‘Suspended Ice’, has been sent for sale to raise funds for the bursary and scholarship programme that plays such an important part of the Trust’s activities. A further 6 works are being sold via Lyon & Turnbull on June 2nd.
 

A new exhibition of late paintings and prints is about to open at the Bohun Gallery, Henley on Thames. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham ‘Colour as Celebration’ runs from 7th February to 26th February 2011. The exhibition includes a rare opportunity to purchase for the first time some of the prints that were posthumously editioned. You can go to the Bohun Gallery’s web site through this link www.bohungallery.co.uk

The gallery is situated at 15 Reading Road, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire  RG9 1AB, telephone 01491 576228.
 
The reconstruction of Balmungo is well under way and we hope to have the house back from the contractors early in the new year. Besides modernising the house - adding central heating for instance, which for anyone who has experienced Balmungo in winter, is long overdue! - we are preparing for the programme of artist, and writer, in residence that will commence in Spring 2011. Included in the plan is a display area for pictures and other artwork, a library and archive room, as well as a large meeting room which will be available to hire.
 
Thursday 9 December 2010, 12.45-1.45pm. Hawthornden Lecture Theatre. National Gallery Complex

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust Lecture: Francis Bacon's Painting (1946): The Making of a Masterpiece

This prestigious annual lecture focuses on Francis Bacon, a close contemporary of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham but a very different sort of artist. Martin Hammer, Reader in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh, will consider the various impulses that went into the creation of one of his most important early pictures, including its enigmatic references to 1930s Nazi propaganda imagery in the aftermath of the Second World War.
 
An exhibition investigating Wilhelmina Barns-Graham's interest in Wentworth D'Arcy Thompson's influential book 'On Growth and Form' is on show at The Tower Foyer Gallery, University of Dundee, as part of the university's celebration "D'Arcy 150' that has been ongoing throughout the year. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham knew and was much interested in the work of this ground breaking academic writer. Born in 1860 the university is celebrating the author's 150th anniversary. Download notes on 'Wilhelmina Barns-Graham - On Growth and Form' . Further details can be found at www.darcythompson.org The Tower Foyer Gallery can be found at The Tower, University of Dundee, Perth Road, Dundee DD1 4HN The exhibition continues until 6 November.
 
A 1952 painting 'Black Rocks' is included in 'Crosscurrents in Modern British Art : Part 1 - Innovation : English Modernism' at the Fine Art Society, 148 New bond Street, London W1S 2JT. Exhibition dates : 22 September to 7 October.
 
The work at redeveloping Willie's St Andrews home, Balmungo, is well under way. It is planned that the refurbishment and updating will be completed by early 2011. Further news regarding the launch of the house as an arts and resource centre, and its facilities, will be announced in the following months, along with details about new residency programmes
 

The Exhibition ‘A Discipline of the Mind : The Drawings of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’ has now opened at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery and runs there until 17 July. Several additional drawings of St Ives and neighbouring localities have been included in the exhibition specifically for this venue. This exhibition is part of the museum’s season of ‘Artists of St Ives and the South West’ which runs throughout the summer. The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust has loaned seven paintings from the 1940s and 1950s to an exhibition particularly on this theme, which is on show until mid September. There is also a series of lectures taking place. For information call 01752 304774 or visit the web site at www.plymouth.gov.uk/museumpcmag.htm/
 

The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust is delighted to announce that the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness have recently purchased a painting by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham ‘Red & Yellow’, a gouache from 1958. This is the first painting by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham to be added to their fine collection of work by St Ives artists.
 

There is a very enlightening article ‘Visual Poetry and Joy in Flowing Lines : Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Drawings’  by Nedira Yakir in the March 2010 issue of PROOF magazine. The magazine is available from www.proof-magazine.com

 

The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust is pleased to announce that the Belgrave Gallery St Ives has agreed to represent Wilhelmina Barns-Graham in St Ives. This reverses a situation where unique works from the studio -  paintings and drawings –have not been readily available. There are two paintings by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham in their exhibition ‘St Ives Moderns’ (7 – 26 June). Other works are available from the gallery upon request.
 

The Trust is pleased to announce that two prints are to be donated to Reading Museum & Art Gallery. This is the first W .Barns-Graham works to be added to this public collection.
 

The drawing ‘Seven Lines No.2’ which is included in the travelling exhibition ‘A Discipline of the Mind’ has been chosen by the author Francesca Kay (who won the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers with her novel “An Equal Stillness”) to provide the background for her lecture “Momentum in the ‘poetic’ novel” at Kellogg College, Oxford at 5pm on Tuesday 2nd March. To reserve your place at the lecture, please contact Anna Pastega, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN; telephone 01865 612015; email ana.pastega@kellogg.ox.ac.uk

 

The Trust has loaned two early etchings by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham  -‘Glacier’ and ‘Tree Freak’ – to the D’Arcy Thompson Museum, University of Dundee. This flags up an exhibition that will take place at the University later in the year (September). Wilhelmina Barns-Graham knew and was much interested in the work of this ground breaking academic writer. Born in 1860 the university is celebrating the author’s 150th anniversary.
Further details can be found at www.darcythompson.org
 
The travelling exhibition ‘A Discipline of the Mind: The Drawings of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’ has just opened at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds where it runs until 27 February 2010.  There will be a talk on Wilhelmina Barns-Graham at the gallery at 6pm on Thursday 10th December, given by Lynne Green, and a lunch time talk presented by the gallery’s Exhibition Officer Layla Bloom will be held on13 January, 1 - 1.30pm. Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds, Parkinson Building, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT. 0113 343 2778 gallery@leeds.ac.uk www.leeds.ac.uk/gallery
 
The 2009 Barns-Graham Lecture will be given by Mel Gooding and will take place as a walk through talk of the exhibition' at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at 6pm on Thursday 28 January 2010. All talks are free to attend.
 
Four paintings by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham – ‘Gurnards Head’ 1947 (BGT3284), ‘Cliff Face’ 1952 (BGT385), ‘Three Rock Forms’ 1951 (BGT1119) and ‘White Cottage’ 1944 (BGT6401) – are included in the exhibition ‘Edge of Abstraction’ at Mascalls Gallery, Mascalls School, Paddock Wood, Kent between 8 January and 13 February 2010. Further details about this show can be found at www.mascallsgallery.org
 
A selection of paintings will be exhibited by Art First at the London Art Fair, Islington, London, 13 – 17 January 2010. This includes a set of six late paintings, acrylics on paper, that have never been previously exhibited.
 
The following venue for ‘A Discipline of the Mind: The Drawings of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’ is Plymouth Art Gallery,  22 May -  10 July.
 
The Trust has recently acquired a very early work by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a rare sketch drawing from her trip to Eastern England in 1939. This acquisition adds to a very small group of drawing of this period in the collection.
 
For this academic year, the Trust is pleased to announce that it has expanded the number of scholarships, grants and awards for which it provides funding. This includes new funding for students at University of Edinburgh, University of Leeds, University College Falmouth, University of Dundee  and University of St Andrews. Details can be found on The Trust page, under ‘Bursaries, Grants & Scholarships’.
 
Do visit our Publications page where books and catalogues are available for sale, with some catalogues being available as free downloads. Please make use of the material provided. A small number of copies of Lynne Green’s book‘W. Barns-Graham : A studio life’have been found and are now available but stocks are extremely limited.
 
Please note that there are copies of the limited editions of both this book, price £395, and of‘The Prints of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham -  a complete catalogue’by Ann Gunn, price £295. Both are in editions of 100 copies, presented in a sleeve box and accompanied by a specially commissioned limited edition screenprint.
 
The Trust web site is regularly updated and we recommend that you make this site one of your Favourites. New activities are happening on a constant basis, as is the ongoing addition of new visual material to the Artwork pages.