Abstract 33 | Summer 2026

Happy Birthday! | Barns-Graham would have been 114 today

Today, 8th June, marks 114 years since Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was born in St Andrews, Fife. To celebrate, we’re highlighting three works she made possibly to mark this day in 1971, her 59th birthday. Whilst part of a larger series of Cryla paintings of clusters of jostling small circle, such as Zoom, 1971 and Glasgow Airport, 1971, these three small paintings on paper are specifically linked to this anniversary through their titles (L to R): Birthday Celebration 2, Celebration Birthday (Indian Red Black + White) and Sea Bed (Birthday Celebration), all 1971.

Later in her career, Barns-Graham revisited creating celebrating compositions using small circles, such as this birthday card made for Sandra Blow’s 75th birthday.

British Landscapes: A Sense of Place and Haroon Hayward: Path through Trees | Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, until 1 November

Now open at Pallant House is British Landscapes: A Sense of Place – which explores through works by more than 60 artists from the 18th to the 20th century, responses to the landscapes of the British Isles, revealing landscape not simply as scenery, but as a powerful expression of memory, identity and emotion. Spanning Romanticism, Modernism and post-war abstraction, the exhibition traces a rich lineage from Thomas Gainsborough and the golden age of British watercolour to the postwar works of Prunella Clough, Terry Frost, Barbara Hepworth, Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson and Eric Ravilious.

Barns-Graham is wonderfully represented by two works from the Pallant House Collection, a drawing St Ives 1955, previously owned by George and Ann Dannatt which is hung alongside works by Ben Nicholson and Alan Reynolds and Snow at Wharfedale II 1957, presented to the gallery by the Trust in 2015 which can be seen displayed between two works by her St Ives contemporary, Terry Frost.

Running alongside British Landscapes: A Sense of Place is Haroun Hayward’s first solo institutional show, Path through Trees, showcasing a new body of work rooted in his experience studying the Sussex landscape. Hayward combines this engagement with landscape with ideas from abstract expressionism, 90s dance music, rave culture, graffiti, and his mother’s South Asian and West African textiles. oil stick techniques that echo embroidery. This series of new works was particularly inspired by post-war British art by artists such as Edward Burra, Ceri Richards, Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.

Ten Good Years | Heong Gallery, Downing College, Cambridge, until 11 October

The Heong Gallery at Downing College, Cambridge, is celebrating its 10th anniversary by paying homage to its inaugural exhibition Generation Painting 1955–65: British Art from the Collection of Sir Alan Bowness. Ten Good Years re-shows selected works from this collection by significant mid-twentieth-century artists such as Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron, and Richard Smith, and introduces new works produced over the past ten years by artists with connections to West Penwith, Cornwall, including Lubaina Himid, Veronica Ryan, and Ro Robertson.

Ten Good Years reveals the way in which themes, places and sympathies evident in Bowness’s collection extend across generations, by exhibiting a selection of contemporary pieces which specifically resonate with this mid-century work. The exhibition’s name derives from the title of Bowness’s essay in the Generation Painting catalogue, in which he reflects on the “notion of a decade as a marker of a generation”.

We are delighted that a small gouache by Barns-Graham, Greek 1960, has been selected for the show and is being shown in public for the first time in over 65 years. It is fitting too that it is being displayed next to the work of contemporary artist Siobhan McLaughlin, a current Trustee of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust. The exhibition will be accompanied by some free public events (details tbc) supported by the WBG Trust.

Curated by Joe Lyward, Ten Good Years also features work by Simon Bayliss, Alan Davie, Pam Evelyn, Terry Frost, Christopher P. Green, Realf Heygate, Peter Lanyon, Janet Leach, Lucy Stein, Mark Tobey and Jonathan Michael Ray.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Nature in Motion | Museum Belvédère, Heereneveen, 20 June to 20 September 2026

Opening this month at Museum Belvédère in Heereneveen will be the first ever retrospective of Barns-Graham’s work on the European continent. Having been included in the Living the Landscape St Ives focused exhibition at the Museum in 2022, this new exhibition will feature around seventy works from across her long career and offer a unique introduction to one of the leading figures of British modernism.

With her focus on nature and landscape, Barns-Graham closely aligns with the artists who define Museum Belvédère’s permanent collection. Like Willem van Althuis, Sjoerd de Vries, Jan Snijder, and Robert Zandvliet, she did not aim to depict the landscape as a visual fact, but rather to represent nature as a formative force. During the exhibition, works by these Frisian artists will also be on view in the museum’s concurrent collection presentation, encouraging a dialogue between British and Frisian modernism.

New Stock! | Brand new set of cards in our shop

To coincide with the two forthcoming Barns-Graham retrospective exhibitions at Museum Belvédère and Tate St Ives, we’ve created a new set of notecards featuring some of our favourite paintings and drawings that feature in both exhibitions, including Three Rock Forms, 1951, Glacier Nocture, 1950, Zoom, 1971 and Blue Dance, 1998. This set of 8 is £15 + P&P and is accompanied by brown recycled paper envelopes.

Shop Now

We’ve also updated the selection of original screenprints available directly from our online shop. If you’ve had your eye on Millennium Series Brown 2000, White Circle Series III 2006, Earth Series III 2002, Wind Dance Series No.I 2004 or Untitled Composition 2006 now is your chance. As always a wider selection of prints is available through our partner gallery, The Scottish Gallery.

DES Talks with Susanna Beaumont | Rob Airey and Mark Cousins on Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

In May Susanna Beaumont from Design Exhibition Scotland recorded a podcast at the Trust office for her brilliant ongoing series, DES Talks. Alongside Trust Director Rob Airey and renowned Edinburgh-based Northern Irish filmmaker Mark Cousins, Susanna led a discussion of Barns-Graham’s work and the making of Mark’s extraordinary film, A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, which celebrates her life and mind.

The podcast is available to listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Youtube. Search ‘DES Talks’.

Save the Date | Our Summer Open Day

Join us on Friday 7th August between 2pm and 5pm to explore Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s archive and celebrate the launch of the new edition of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: A Studio Life by Lynne Green.

Select items from the archive, curated by PhD student Mattea Gernentz who is currently undertaking a SGSAH internship at the WBG Trust will be on display. Mattea will also be leading an exploration of Barns-Graham’s artistic influences and international impact. Participants will engage with unique materials from the archive and pen their own response (in verse or prose) to Willie’s timeless art.

Recent Blogs

Twenty-five Years in the Making: Looking back at the first edition of a studio life
Ahead of the publication of the new edition of Lynne Green’s monograph, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: a studio life, our archivist, Tilly Heydon, brings together materials from the archive relating to its first publication twenty five years ago.

Reading Relationships: Reacquired Books and Archival Afterlives in The Library of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham
Veryan Johnson recently completed a placement cataloguing the Trust’s library. She reflects on the direct and indirect ways the books have come into the collection, tracing their movements between people through gifts and exchanges.

Where to See Willie | Our quarterly exhibition round-up

Two Barns-Graham works from the Penlee House Gallery and Kirkcaldy Galleries collections are on display in the touring exhibition, Making Her Mark. Currently on display at Penlee House Gallery & Museum in Penzance until 27 September 2026 before travelling to Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum and Kirkcaldy Galleries.

Earth Matters continues at Inverleith House at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh until 1 November. Two gouaches from the Trust’s collection, including September Orkney, 1985-6 (left) are on display alongside 30 other artists.

Works can usually be found on display in galleries such as City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Falmouth Art Gallery, Leeds Art Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, The Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Tate St Ives, Penwith Gallery, St Ives and Pier Arts Centre, Stromness.