Preview Wilhelmina Barns-Graham
A very timely exhibition about the discipline of the mind
Preview: Wilhelmina Barns-Graham
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In the fresh light of of the new year, “discipline of the mind” seems a mantra we should all adhere to. We must be disciplined: about going to bed early, about not eating (in one sitting) a whole Vienetta and about not going to the supermarket in pyjamas and Ugg boots.
For Wilhelmina Barns-Graham - a painter and printmaker in post-war Britain - discipline of the mind was more than a news year’s fad. It was a way of life - and by showing such self-control, she became one of the most significant female British artists of the 20th century.
On show now in the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery (in the Parkinson Building at the University of Leeds), is the aptly titled A Discipline of the Mind exhibition, showing almost 40 of Barns-Graham’s absorbing landscape drawings, many of which have rarely been exhibited: “I have always been interested in drawing,” she once said. “It is a discipline of the mind.”
Barns-Graham’s drawings rawly examine natural formations: glaciers, volcanic rock and seascapes - in which she skilfully captures their elemental essence, shapes and movement - such as the tightly knit line drawings that explore the mass and swell of the sea. These case-studies become the basis of Barns-Graham’s colourful paintings for which she became renowned. Talking of her style Barns-Graham said cryptically: “I seek to discover abstract shapes accepting the subject’s demands often touching different moods.”
Barns-Graham spent a brief period in Leeds teaching art. “Wilhelmina Barns-Graham taught at the Leeds School of Art from 1956 to 1957 and so it’s great to have her work back in the city”, said Layla Bloom, exhibitions officer at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery.
Many of the drawings in the exhibition were done while Barns-Graham travelled in Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Orkney. In later later life, the artist split her time between her home-town, St Andrews in Scotland, and St Ives in Cornwall. Living in these coastal towns obviously influenced her sense of empathy for the natural world.
“This exhibition demonstrates her achievement as one of the finest landscape draughtsmen of her generation. Her drawings have an analytic dynamism and diverse stylistic verve that is utterly original and distinctive,” writes curator Mel Gooding. Indeed, an inspiring example of a very disciplined mind.
Until 27 February, Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, LS2 9JT, 0113 343 2777, Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, free
Posted on Friday 8th January 2010
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