2024 Summer Exhibition: Sandra Blow & Gallery Favourites

7 August - 20 September 2024
Red Alert, Sandra Blow, 2000
Red Alert, Sandra Blow, 2000

 

 

Georgia Stoneman Fine Art presents a colour drenched exhibition of works by Sandra Blow and other gallery favourites; Terry Frost and Breon O'Casey.

 

A pioneer of the British abstract movement of the 1950s, Sandra Blow's  (1925–2006) distinctive works are often characterised by large scale and colourful abstracts. Her artistic journey began at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art, where she studied under notable teachers like Ruskin Spear and immersed herself in the artists’ social scene, enjoying the company of luminaries such as Lucian Freud, John Minton, and Francis Bacon. Her creative path led her to Italy, where she met Alberto Burri, her partner for several years. Together, they explored Italy and Paris, with Burri significantly influencing her work. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she and Burri created works in response to each other, even as Burri gained international recognition. However, Blow eventually sought to establish her artistic identity independently, free from Burri’s impact; her legacy endures as a pioneering abstract artist who created vibrant, expressive, textured compositions from discarded materials. Her captivating work is currently held by the Tate with two currently on show at Tate Britain and Tate St Ives.
 
We will be showing a number of her pieces throughout the Summer at our Fore Street Gallery in Castle Cary from 7th August.
 
For sales or press enquiries please contact laura@georgiastoneman.com

 

  • Sandra Blow

    Sandra Blow

    Sandra Blow RA (1925-2006) was one of the leading lights of the abstract art movement of the 1950s. Her works are often on a large scale and consist of abstract collages made up from cheap discarded materials such as sawdust, cut-out strips of old canvas, plaster and torn paper. The use of such materials is designed to create an expressive informality and promote a natural, organic feeling. Her works have a tactile as well as visual emphasis on surface, and her use of simple large geometric shapes lends a feeling of expansiveness and dynamism.

     

    Sandra Blow was born in London in 1925, the daughter of a Kent fruit farmer whose orchards supplied retailers in Covent Garden. She left school at 15 and in 1940 entered St Martin's School of Art. Shortly after the Second World War, Blow studied at the Royal Academy Schools, but in 1947 ventured further afield and lived in Italy for a year, where she met Alberto Burri, who was a significant influence on her work for the rest of her career.

  • BREON O'CASEY

    BREON O'CASEY

    Breon O'Casey (1928-2011), was a painter, sculptor and printmaker who lived and worked in Cornwall, initially in the artists' colony of St Ives.

     

    Following his national service, O’Casey attended the Anglo-French Art School in St John’s Wood, London. In the late 1950s, O’Casey was drawn to St Ives after being inspired by a film on primitive painter Alfred Wallis who had lived there. Living in St Ives, he became the assistant to sculptor Denis Mitchell and later to Barbara Hepworth, and was introduced to many other artists associated with the St Ives Group, experiences which informed his later career. 

     

    After being introduced to the jewellery of Alexander Calder, O’Casey was inspired to make his own, initially just to make some extra money, but he found that he was dedicating more and more time to the craft as demand grew, and he ended up making a name for himself as a jeweller as well as a painter.

     

    O'Casey wasn't constricted to the hierarchy of materials or specialisms; throughout his career he continued to explore possibilities in both art and craft, moving onto weaving after jewellery and then sculpture, predominantly out of wax which were then cast in bronze. 

     

    He exhibited widely and his work can be found in many permanent collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Collection, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Leeds City Art Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Pforzheim Museum, Germany among others.

  • Terry Frost

    Terry Frost

    Painter, printmaker and teacher Sir Terry Frost RA (1915-2003), was a key figure in the development of British twentieth-century abstract art, renowned for his bold use of colour and shape, who worked in Newlyn, Cornwall. 

     

    Frosts draw to painting was initially spurred by the art-related conversations he had with fellow English painter Adrian Heath, whilst detained as a prisoner of war in a Nazi camp during World War II. This experience encouraged Frost to attend the Camberwell School of Art upon his return to England in 1945, where he would go on to study under the renowned painters Victor Pasmore, Ben Nicholson and William Coldstream.

     

    Frost was given the opportunity to attend the St Ives School of Painting, before returning to Camberwell to complete his studies. In this time and the subsequent years he exhibited with the St Ives Society of Artists, and after settling in Cornwall was elected a member of the Penwith Society and worked as an assistant to Barbara Hepworth, hence he became associated with the St Ives group. 

     

    His teaching career led him to Bath Academy of Art, the University of Leeds, Cyprus College of Art and the University of Reading. He was awarded the John Moores Painting Prize in 1965, became a Royal Academician in 1992 and received a knighthood in 1998. A retrospective of his work was held at The Royal Academy in 2000.