April 29, 2017

An expert in the work of abstract painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Geoffrey Bertram, will be at the Burton gallery holding a special talk about the artist’s life on Saturday, May 6 at 2pm.

Free of charge, and coinciding with the Burton’s current Barns-Graham’s “A Different Way of Working” exhibition, the afternoon with Geoffrey Bertram (chairman of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust) will cover the artist’s approach to experimental print-making from her early years – as part of the Crypt Group and Penwith Society of Arts – up until her collaboration with Carol Robertson of Graal Press in 1998.

Barns-Graham was born in St. Andrews, Fife in 1912, but moved to Cornwall in 1940 to join the group of modernist artists working at Carbis Bay near St. Ives.

The Burton at Bideford’s exhibition, which is curated by Ann Gunn of St Andrews University, and is titled “A Different Way of Working: The Prints of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham”, is an amalgamation of creative printmaking techniques Barns-Graham experimented with, such as offset drawing, lino-cutting, etching, lithography and screen-printing.

Although Barns-Graham produced a sizeable body of paintings and drawings in her sixty-seven year career (she died in January 2004 aged 91), the current exhibition charts her journey as a printmaker. The exhibition itself will, unusually, take up both Gallery spaces at the Burton, and include 22 additional prints that have not previously been displayed in this exhibition.

Everyone is welcome to come along to Geoffrey’s talk and tour to experience the life and artistic journey of a woman who became a master of printmaking.

The Barns-Graham exhibition is on at the Burton until May 14 and the Burton is open 10-4 Mon to Sat and 11-4 on Sundays.

ENDS

Notes to editors

 

 

Interviews

Geoffrey Bertram, chairman of the Barns-Graham Trust, is available for interviews.

 

More info can be found on the Burton’s website: https://www.burtonartgallery.co.uk/exhibitions-activities/wilhelmina-barns-graham-prints-exhibition/

 

More info about Barns-Graham’s work and legacy can be found here: http://www.barns-grahamtrust.org.uk/