Constructed painting (Moonlit)

Details

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2003)
Constructed painting (Moonlit)
signed and dated 'W Barns-Graham. 1983' (lower right, on the hardboard), signed again, inscribed and dated '"CONSTRUCTED PAINTING". (MOONLIT.)/DATE. NOVEMBER 1983./ W Barns-Graham' (on an artist's label attached to the backboard)
acrylic on card on hardboard
9 x 7 in. (22.8 x 17.7 cm.)
This work is recorded by the artist as 160/83/E COL.

Provenance

with Penwith Gallery, St Ives, where purchased by the present owner.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was born in St Andrews, Fife, and attended Edinburgh College of Art before moving to Cornwall in 1940, where she met artists including Adrian Stokes, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo. She became a member of Newlyn Society of Artists and St Ives Society of Artists and for the rest of her life she divided her time between St Ives and St Andrews, spending the summers in Cornwall and the winters in Scotland.

Painted in 1983, Constructed painting (Moonlit), relates to Barns-Graham's Mirage and Day/Night themes that are evident in her work of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The ethereal circular forms in the present work suggest 'planet' forms visible in an imaginary night sky (see L. Green, W. Barns-Graham: a studio life, Aldershot, 2001, p. 205).

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