The Clive Beardsmore Gift Interventions
St Ives Artists
from The Clive Beardsmore Gift
2 May – 23 August 2015
This in-focus exhibition from The Clive Beardsmore Collection examined a body of work by artists associated with the Cornish harbour town of St Ives, which during and after the Second World War was home to a wide range of leading abstract artists, who sought quiet refuge from the atrocities which had been happening across Europe and gained inspiration away from the hectic pace of London.
Although many of the Modern British Artists rejected total abstraction following the war, and returned to more figurative work, the St Ives Artists embraced the abstract values of Modernism, and applied it to an appreciation of the landscape of Cornwall. St Ives to this day continues to have a unique appeal for artists attracted by the quality of light and the dramatic coastline.
Among the artists represented in The Clive Beardsmore Collection are Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Sandra Blow, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Peter Lanyon and Tony O’Malley.
The Clive Beardsmore Gift Interventions in the Garman Ryan Galleries
This selection of Interventions into the Garman Ryan Collection are some of the highlights of a donation of 200 artworks received by the Gallery in 2014 from Birmingham-based private collector Clive Beardsmore. Clive has a longstanding association with our collections, haivng worked at the old Walsall Art Gallery in the early 1970s, coinciding with the time Walsall received Kathleen Garman’s gift. This body of work is the largest individual donation to our collections since The Garman Ryan Collection.
Floor 2
Garman Ryan Temporary Exhibition Space