Gillian Ayres

Redfern Gallery, London, September 1996

The rough edged board has been chipped at the upper left and lower right corners and has suffered another tiny loss at the left edge, just above the centre point. These damages may have occurred in the artist's studio. Otherwise, the work is in excellent original condition, the paint surface sound and stable retaining lovely impasto throughout. The painting is somewhat difficult to read under UV light but there is a possible short strip of retouching in the whiteish pigment above the lower left corner. Smartly presented 'floated' within a black wooden box frame in excellent condition. Ready for the wall.
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During her time at Camberwell Ayres work steadily moved towards a reaction against the established methods of the Euston Road School that were prevalent and led her to a belief in modernism and abstraction which was to ultimately define her career. In 1951 she started working at the Artists International Association Gallery (AIA), along with Henry Mundy, where she witnessed the first post-war abstract exhibition and became friends with many of the artists involved, particularly Roger Hilton. Her work at this time reflects her gradual involvement with abstraction along with experimentation of her own methods where she began to use 'non-artistic' materials and applied them in a way which is reminiscent of Jackson Pollock, although she was unaware of his work at that time. The current work was painted circa 1952 and is typical of a period when Ayres would have been moving towards abstraction creating paintings full of vitality which refused to depict familiar imagery.