Gear, William: Boats and Buildings

Description

Artist: William Gear, R.A., F.R.S.A., Scottish, (1915-1997).

Title and date: Boats and Buildings, 1947.

Size of picture: 29.5 x 44 cms.

Description: a superb lithograph in wonderful condition, typical of Gear’s colourful abstract style, numbered 19 from the limited edition of 200, signed ‘Gear’ in pencil and dated 2/47 in the plate, newly framed.

More images can be provided on request.

Artist description: A painter and printmaker born in Methil, Fife, Scotland, he studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1932-1936, the Edinburgh University Fine Art Class in 1936-1937 and worked under Fernand Léger in Paris from 1937-1938. Between 1947 and 1950, he was actively involved with the CoBrA Group, exhibiting with them in Copenhagen and Amsterdam in 1949. In the same year, he had an exhibition with Jackson Pollock in New York. Gear was one of the first post-war British artists to move into pure abstract painting. In 1958 he was appointed curator of the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne and in 1964 as Head of Fine Art at Birmingham School of Art, retiring in 1975. He received numerous prizes and awards and was elected a member of the RSA in 1970 and of the RA in 1995. He held many solo exhibitions in Britain and abroad and a major retrospective was held at the Redfern Gallery in 2015. His work is in many galleries including Aberdeen Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, BM, National Gallery of Australia, SAC, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Tate Gallery and the V&A.