A World Of Colour And Concentrated Joy

This is a bumper year for the 87-year-old abstractionist Gillian Ayres, with several shows and a book. It is not before time, says Andrew Lambirth.

- Andrew Lambirth

Gillian Ayres is one of our greatest living painters and, at 87, one of the most senior. And yet no one talks about her as the national treasure she undoubtedly is. Is this because she paints abstractions?

Many people still feel uneasy about abstract art, as if they have to explain it rather than experience it.

Gillian Ayres makes pictures to be looked at and enjoyed. Born in London in 1930, she attended Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts but left when she was expected to sit exams.

Among her teachers were Victor Pasmore and Michael Rothenstein, who prophesied that one day she would be a great colourist – as she has indeed become.

Forthright, generous-spirited and independent, Ayres has always had the courage and determination to go her own way. Although she has enjoyed a varied career as a teacher, at art schools in Corsham, London and Winchester, her true vocation is as a painter.

Ayres is a great original, celebrated for her unorthodox thinking and her years as a pioneer of abstraction in England. An exhibition of exuberant new work, and the publication of a new book, offer a double opportunity to look at her art and ponder her original achievement.

The exhibition is the latest commercial show mounted by her dealer, Alan Cristea. The book has a passionately partisan foreword by Andrew Marr.

Ayres has spent her life looking: at the world around her and at other art. Until recent years, when increasing infirmity has prevented regular visits to London from her rural retreat in Cornwall, one of her greatest pleasures has been mooching around galleries and museums, just seeing what was going on. Everything was grist to her visual mill, from Old Masters to contemporary figuration, from fine carpets to ceramics.