DESPITE being in the forefront of British Modernism, with Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo, in St Ives during the 1940s and 1950s, Wilhelmina— Willie—Barns-Graham’s work is still relatively little known. Perhaps it’s less easy to categorise than theirs. As Nicholson was, she was both a figurative and an abstract painter and draughtsman, but, unlike him, each did not represent different phases of her career, as she carried on the practice of drawing in the open air throughout her life, even during her most extreme non-figurative periods.
Born in 1912, into a well-to-do Scottish family in St Andrews, Barns-Graham had to fight paternal opposition to be allowed to study art rather than follow a more genteel course to marriage and family life. She succeeded in entering the Edinburgh College of Art, where she was tutored by the Scottish Colourist S. J. Peploe and by William Gillies. In 1938, she was awarded a six-month European travelling scholarship; however, due to illness, followed by the outbreak of war, it became impossible to take this up. Instead, she was encouraged to move to St Ives. As Virginia Button writes in her forthcoming book on the artist published by Sansom and Co, this ‘represented independence from her family and the beginning of a love affair with Cornwall that would last for 60 years’.
Denne historien er fra June 03, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 03, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
