Taking the vibrant London Art Fair in January as a guide, this will be another exciting year for Modern British art for us at Bury Street. We were pleased to be part of such a successful Fair, with over 20,000 people visiting during the week, and we enjoyed seeing many regular clients. Moreover, we were thrilled that so many new people engaged with us. The Art Newspaper thought the Fair’s clear focus on Modern British art was the reason for its success this year and given that it is one of our specialisms we certainly felt at home.
Our exhibition catalogue is available to view online and here are some of the shows hightlights.
Anne Redpath is a rare artist for us; influenced by Matisse, she was a superb exponent of bold, expressive still life - her work recently featured in two important exhibitions in Scotland. So we’re delighted to present The Red Candlestick, a robust, exuberant, classic Redpath painting. She once said of her upbringing in a clothmaking family, “I do with a spot of red or yellow in a harmony of grey, what my father did in his tweed.” There’s more than a spot of red in this remarkable oil.
More sober in the use of colour but no less fascinating in structure and elongated form, Roger Hilton’s Long Black proves how exciting the 1950s were for art in Britain. Hilton, of course, became one of the most prominent members of the St Ives artists. So to have this early, earthy piece from 1956 that points so clearly towards the kind of work which would later win him the John Moores Painting Prize is a real treat.
Staying in the mid-1950s, John Plumb is an abstract artist who has always meant a lot to us - the retrospective of his work at our gallery in 2015 remains one of our most memorable exhibitions. Like Hilton’s Long Black, it’s great to have such insight into his early practice with Painting To Red (1957); this powerful, kaleidoscopic burst of colour and texture is a long way from the minimalist and austere tape paintings with which he made his name in the 1960s, but just as distinctive.
Another early-career work we’re delighted to present is Paul Feller’s evocative July-Newlyn (1958). It’s often said of this German-born artist that for all his commitment to abstraction, his style was a lyrical response to the natural landscapes of Cornwall that he came to love. There’s certainly a hint here of the busy harbour at Newlyn and the sweep of the bay beyond.
Moving into the late 20th century, Frank Bowling has been one of our favourite artists for many years. When the Guyana-born abstract painter enjoyed a major retrospective at the Tate in 2019, he was called an artist who “pushes the possibilities of paint”. Certainly, Untitled (1991) is an example of that; there are chance and playful interactions with colour and form throughout this oil - a paint pot, for example, has left a ring on the surface of the canvas, and there appears to be an outline of South America. These devices are nods to the entire series that have made Bowling an arresting artist.
Talking of artists gathering together previous repertoires into a satisfying whole, Terry Frost’s Red Crescent, Blue And Black is like the greatest hits of his career; as a master of collage, colour and shape, it should come as no surprise that in this work he adeptly combined all these interests, making for a piece of wonderful energy and movement.
Finally, bringing matters into the 21st century and our contemporary collection, we’ve been really taken with Tony Bevan’s magnificent Violet Interior (2003). In one of his smaller compositions on paper, Bevan would take a minimal view of an interior - in this case, seeming to look upwards through the skylights of an old industrial building - and then depict it in one striking colour. The effect is mesmerising - at once incredibly familiar and strangely alien.
Modern British & Contemporary featured sculpture from Richard Fox, Robert Fogell, Jonathan Clarke and Tommy Rowe. Click here to view the catalogue and please get in touch with us if you'd like to find out more about any of these works or to be added to our mailing list.
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Artwork Enquiry: https://theninebritishart.co.uk/contact/
Tel: 0207 930 9293
