British Abstraction

St Ives in Cornwall became a centre for modern and abstract developments of British art after World War Two. Painters and sculptors including Barbara Hepworth, Terry Frost and Sandra Blow all spent time there and are included in Durham’s Collection. Artists were inspired by the dramatic shapes, forms and colours of the landscape for their art.

An example from Durham University’s Art Collection is:

Sandra Blow

Sandra Blow was one of the leading artists of the abstract art movement of the 1950s. Her works are often on a large scale and consist of abstract collages. Blow developed new processes of working with cheap discarded materials such as sawdust, cut-out strips of old canvas, plaster and torn paper. In the below print, it is possible to see the texture of the original canvas which was used to create this work.

Blow – Four squares on a white background – a blue square with a white and a yellow stripe, a yellow square with a white and darker yellow stripe, an orange square with a white and pink stripe, and a red square with two dark yellow stripes.