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Lot Essay
Born into a wealthy industrial family, Bryan Wynter initially intended to join the family business, but at the age of 23 chose instead to pursue a career in art. He studied at Westminster School of Art between 1937 and 1938, before enrolling at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1938. Following the Second World War, Wynter settled in Cornwall, first in Zennor and later in St Buryan, where he became closely associated with the St Ives School.
Wynter’s string of exhibitions at London’s Redfern Gallery began in 1947, with his 1948 show prompting a review by Patrick Heron, a fellow Slade alumnus and one of Wynter’s most insightful critics. Heron described Wynter’s early figurative landscapes as a melting pot of ‘the ingenuity of cubism … the mood of a romantic; the discipline in abstract form of a still-life artist with the subjects of a landscapist.’
In 1956, Wynter’s artwork underwent a radical shift in style, scale, and subject matter. Completed in January of that year, The Interior was the first major work to mark this transformation, soon followed by pieces including Blind Man’s Bush, Night Journey, Earth’s Riches, Earth Tremor, and Tumult. Post-1956, Wynter’s style is characterised by its large scale and dynamic, almost calligraphic, gestural marks. He referred to this approach as ‘no consciousness’ painting, a style reflecting his belief that art should have self-generative powers and avoid conscious structure or imposed meaning. This ideal echoes Frank Auerbach’s view that ‘all good painting looks as though the painting has escaped from the thicket of prepared positions and has entered some sort of freedom where it exists on its own, and by its own laws, and inexplicably has got free of all possible explanations.’ Wynter’s technique also connected him with Tachisme, a European abstract movement that treated art as an expression of the brushstroke itself, rather than a means of representation.
In line with his aspiration for ‘no consciousness’ painting, Wynter avoided the constraints of predetermined narrative by not titling his works until they were complete. For The Interior, Heron attempted to find the title within the work itself, spotting the hint of a window along the upper edge, and the fragmented outline of a table toward the right centre. The painting’s fleshy tones suggest a human presence within the interior setting. These tones seem to move across the canvas’s surface, flashing from one place to the next. This transforms the painting into a living environment, self-generating, as Wynter might have said, or, in Auerbach’s words, existing ‘by its own laws.’
Wynter’s string of exhibitions at London’s Redfern Gallery began in 1947, with his 1948 show prompting a review by Patrick Heron, a fellow Slade alumnus and one of Wynter’s most insightful critics. Heron described Wynter’s early figurative landscapes as a melting pot of ‘the ingenuity of cubism … the mood of a romantic; the discipline in abstract form of a still-life artist with the subjects of a landscapist.’
In 1956, Wynter’s artwork underwent a radical shift in style, scale, and subject matter. Completed in January of that year, The Interior was the first major work to mark this transformation, soon followed by pieces including Blind Man’s Bush, Night Journey, Earth’s Riches, Earth Tremor, and Tumult. Post-1956, Wynter’s style is characterised by its large scale and dynamic, almost calligraphic, gestural marks. He referred to this approach as ‘no consciousness’ painting, a style reflecting his belief that art should have self-generative powers and avoid conscious structure or imposed meaning. This ideal echoes Frank Auerbach’s view that ‘all good painting looks as though the painting has escaped from the thicket of prepared positions and has entered some sort of freedom where it exists on its own, and by its own laws, and inexplicably has got free of all possible explanations.’ Wynter’s technique also connected him with Tachisme, a European abstract movement that treated art as an expression of the brushstroke itself, rather than a means of representation.
In line with his aspiration for ‘no consciousness’ painting, Wynter avoided the constraints of predetermined narrative by not titling his works until they were complete. For The Interior, Heron attempted to find the title within the work itself, spotting the hint of a window along the upper edge, and the fragmented outline of a table toward the right centre. The painting’s fleshy tones suggest a human presence within the interior setting. These tones seem to move across the canvas’s surface, flashing from one place to the next. This transforms the painting into a living environment, self-generating, as Wynter might have said, or, in Auerbach’s words, existing ‘by its own laws.’