Bird Flight No.1

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912 - 2004)

Oil and acrylic on board and hardboard

1971

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  • About the work
    Location
    Country: Pakistan
    City: Islamabad
    Place: British High Commission

    "Bird Flight No.1" is characteristic of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham's work from the early 1970s. The placement of colours and shapes is clearly defined. She would add titles to her works after finishing them, rather than restricting herself to an idea before starting to paint. Here, without taking the title too illustratively, we could view the blue discs as individuals within a flock, moving across the canvas. They seem to swoop from an ordered formation into chaos, before reforming a compromised sense of composure at the right. Barns-Graham's early paintings were figurative, but she moved more towards abstraction as her career progressed.

  • About the artist
    Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was born in Fife, in Scotland, and studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1932 to 1936. In 1940, she moved to St Ives where she met the artists Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Peter Lanyon. From the 1960s onwards she divided her time between her home in St Ives and a small estate in St Andrews, inherited from an aunt. She exhibited consistently from the 1940s and was included in surveys of the St Ives School, in particular the 1945 exhibition St Ives 1939-64 at the Tate in London. In 1999 she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy and was awarded a CBE in 2001. In that year a major monograph went some way to assert Barns-Graham’s rightful position as a significant British artist.
  • Explore
    Places
    Subjects
    oval, abstract, flock (birds)
    Materials & Techniques
    acrylic (paint), board, hardboard, oil, mixed media (art object), acrylic painting, oil painting
  • Details
    Artist
    Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912 - 2004)
    Title
    Bird Flight No.1
    Date
    1971
    Medium
    Oil and acrylic on board and hardboard
    Dimensions
    height: 30.00 cm, width: 37.50 cm
    Acquisition
    Purchased from the Fine Art Society, July 1998
    Inscription
    LR: W BarnsGraham 1971 VERSO (in pencil on top stretcher bar): Bird Flight 2 [amended in red ink to 1]. 1971 W BarnsGraham VERSO: TITLE / "Bird Flight No 1" / DATE 1971 / SIZE 12" x 15" / MEDIUM OIL + CRYLA ON HARDBOARD" / ARTIST W. Barns-Graham / ADDRESS 1 BARNALOFT ST IVES CWLL
    Provenance
    Sold through Phillips, Son & Neale on 6 June 1995 (Lot 177); from which sale purchased by the Fine Art Society; from whom purchased by the Government Art Collection in July 1998
    GAC number
    17331