Gillian Ayres

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Gillian Ayres
Camberwell School of Art[1]
Known for
Notable workAntony and Cleopatra
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1951; div. 1976)​
Awards

Gillian Ayres

RA (3 February 1930 – 11 April 2018) was an English painter. She is best known for abstract painting and printmaking using vibrant colours, which earned her a Turner Prize
nomination.

Early life and education

Gillian Ayres was born to Florence and Stephen Ayres on 3 February 1930 in Barnes, London, the youngest of three sisters.[1][2][3] She started school when she was six. Her parents, a prosperous couple who owned a hatmaking factory,[3] sent her to Ibstock, a progressive school in Roehampton run on Fröbel principles.[2][4]

In 1941, Ayres was sent to

St Paul's, Hammersmith.[5] She passed the entrance exam for St Paul's Girls' School the following year,[5] and developed an interest in art while there.[1][2] Among her schoolfriends was Shirley Williams, with whom she taught art to children in bomb-damaged parts of London.[6]

Ayres then decided to go to art school. In 1946, she applied to the

Camberwell School of Art and studied there from 1946 to 1950.[7][8]

Teaching

Gillian Ayres worked part-time at the

Bath Academy of Art, Corsham, for six weeks. She remained on the teaching staff until 1965.[9]

For much of her time at Corsham she shared a teaching studio with

Llyn Peninsula in north-west Wales to become a full-time painter.[2][7]

Painting

Antony and Cleopatra, 1982

Gillian Ayres' early works are typically made with thin vinyl paint in a limited number of colours arranged in relatively simple forms, but later works in oil paint are more exuberant and very colourful, with a thick impasto being used. [citation needed][11]

One of Ayres' early projects was a 1957 commission by architect Michael Greenwood to decorate the South Hampstead High School dining hall in north London. The murals, described as "the only true British contribution to American abstract expressionism", were quickly covered over with wallpaper before being rediscovered in 1983 in nearly perfect condition.[3]

The titles of her paintings, such as Anthony and Cleopatra (1982), A Midsummer Night (1990) and Gyre and Gimble (2013), were usually given after the painting is completed and do not directly describe the content of the painting, but rather are intended to resonate with the general mood of the work.[12]

Printmaking

Ayres was a dedicated printmaker, making prints with Jack Shirreff in

Alan Cristea Gallery in 1998. The Alan Cristea Gallery went on to present her works in seven solo exhibitions at the gallery, and numerous group exhibitions, and at art fairs around the world. Several of her solo exhibitions toured to institutes in the UK, and the gallery worked in partnership with institutions and museums, including Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2010),[14] the National Museum Cardiff, Wales (2017)[15] and CAFA Art Museum, Beijing (2017)[16]
to bring Ayres’ work to wider audiences through major exhibitions of her paintings, drawings and prints.

Solo exhibitions and collections

Ayres had a number of solo exhibitions, the first at Gallery One, London, in 1956.

Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; Swindon Museum and Art Gallery;[20] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven[21] and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.[18]

In 2023 her work was included in the exhibition Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.[22]

Awards

Ayres was awarded the Japan International Art Promotion Association Award in 1963, and in 1975 she was awarded a bursary by the Arts Council of Great Britain.[17] In 1982 she was named runner up for the John Moores Painting Prize[17] and shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1989.[23]

She was appointed

Myra Hindley in the exhibition.[24]

She was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours.[25][26]

Momart fire (2004)

Main article: Momart § The 2004 warehouse fire

On 24 May 2004, 14 of Ayres' pieces were destroyed in a fire at a warehouse of the art-storage company Momart in the Cromwell industrial estate in Leyton, east London.[17][27]

Personal life

Ayres married the painter Henry Mundy in 1951. They divorced in 1976, but continued to live together. They had two sons.[3][7] The couple lived with their younger son,[2] also a painter.[28]

In 1987, Ayres moved from Wales to a 15th-century cottage at Morwenstow, on the Devon–Cornwall border.[28] In the late 1970s, Ayres suffered from pancreatitis and was comatose for four days. In 2003, she suffered a heart attack.[2]

Death

Ayres died in hospital in

Alan Cristea Gallery, who represented her for twenty years.[31] Her work was shown posthumously, alongside that of Rachel Jones and Nao Matsunaga in 2019 at the New Art Centre, Salisbury, Wiltshire.[32]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Gillian Ayres RA". Royal Academy of Arts. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Gayford, Martin (28 January 2010). "Abstract artist Gillian Ayres: painting against the tide". The Telegraph. Retrieved 6 July 2010.
  3. ^ a b c d Hilton, Tim (11 April 2018). "Gillian Ayres obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  4. ^ Gooding, p. 14
  5. ^ a b Gooding, pg. 15
  6. ^ "All About The Work of Gillian Ayres". magazinecollage.com. 19 February 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-1-884964-21-3
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0714878775
    .
  9. ^ "Gillian Ayres: Pleasure and paint – Christie's". Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  10. ^ Gooding, pg. 46
  11. ^ "Modernism lite? Modigliani at the Estorick Collection reviewed". The Spectator. 9 May 2015. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  12. Independent.co.uk
    . 24 September 1995. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  13. ^ "Gillian AyresThumbprint Editions – Thumbprint Editions". www.thumbprinteditions.com. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  14. ^ "Jerwood Gallery – What's On". www.jerwoodgallery.org. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  15. ^ "Gillian Ayres". National Museum Wales. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  16. ^ "Exhibition | Sailing off the Edge | CAFA Art Museum". Museum.cafa.com.cn. 27 August 2017. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  17. ^
    ISBN 978-0-9534839-3-8
    .
  18. ^ a b "Gillian Ayres RA". Royal Academy of Arts. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  19. ^ "Gillian Ayres". Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  20. ^ "Art UK". Art UK.
  21. ^ Maj, Yale Center for British Art, Lec. "Flighted Ones". collections.britishart.yale.edu. Retrieved 12 April 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  22. ^ "Turner Prize History 1984-2000". Artlyst. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  23. ^ a b Thorpe, Vanessa (21 September 1997). "Hindley picture is a sensation too far for artist Ayres". The Independent. London, UK. Retrieved 3 May 2010.
  24. ^ "No. 59808". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2011. p. 7.
  25. ^ "Main list of the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours List recipients" (PDF). BBC News UK. Retrieved 11 June 2011.
  26. ^ Meek, James (23 September 2004). "Art to Ashes". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  27. ^ a b Valerie Grove (30 January 2010). "At age 80, the painter Gillian Ayres is just hitting her stride". The Times. London, UK.
  28. ^ "Gillian Ayres: Trailblazing abstract artist dies at 88". BBC. 11 April 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  29. ^ "British abstract artist Gillian Ayres dies at 88". Washington Post. 11 April 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2018.[dead link]
  30. ^ "English Painter Gillian Ayres dies aged 88". The Guardian. 11 April 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  31. ^ "Gillian Ayres | Rachel Jones | Nao Matsunaga". NewArtCentre. Retrieved 1 February 2022.

Further reading

External links
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