Wilhelmina Barns Graham CBE (1912-2004)
Born in St Andrews, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham
attended Edinburgh College of Art (1932-37) and went to St. Ives in 1940, quickly becoming part of the group which included Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth and she was a founder member of the Penwith Society. She travelled regularly over the next 20 years in Switzerland, Italy, Paris, and Spain. With the exception of a short teaching term at Leeds School of Art (1956-57) and three years in London (1960 -63) she lived and worked in St Ives from 1940, with regular stays in St Andrews. Barns-Graham was one of the foremost abstract artists in the UK. Her sense of colour was exceptional. She painted with great conviction and power, and always had the ability to surprise. Her images derived from acute observations of natural forms and places she had visited, pared to their bare essentials. As part of the St Ives Group she has been in all the major survey exhibitions including the significant 1985 St Ives 1939-64, at the Tate Gallery, Millbank, London. In 1999 Tate St Ives presented a major survey exhibition, ‘Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: An Enduring Image’.
