Object Description
William Gear (1915-1997)
Black Figure on Red No.3 1956
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated, further titled on reverse and dated Nov ‘56
Provenance: The artists family.
In excellent untouched original condition, no cracks or paint issues.
British abstract painter, born at Methil, Fife. He spent several years of his career in Europe and was one of the most international British artists of his generation and one of the relatively few to make a reputation outside Britain.
After studying painting at Edinburgh College of Art, 1932–36, and history of art at Edinburgh University, 1936–7, he spent a year in Europe on a travelling scholarship, working for several months under Fernand Léger in Paris. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Signal Corps in Europe and the Middle East, though he found time to paint and in 1944 he had one-man shows in both Florence and Siena.
In 1946–7 he worked in Germany as one of ‘The Monuments Men’ tracking down looted Nazi art. From 1947 to 1950 he lived in Paris, where in 1948 he became a member of the avant garde Cobra group whose members included Asger Jorn & Karel Appel.
In 1949 he exhibited alongside Jackson Pollock at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York. Gear pointed out that he was not influenced by American art but that it was the innovations in Europe that were the source of this inspiration.
In 1950 he settled in England and the following year he was one of five painters who was awarded an Arts Council Purchase Prize at the Festival of Britain; the decision caused protest from the press and public, for Gear’s picture (Autumn Landscape, 1950, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne) was the only abstract work among the five chosen and abstract art was at this time still generally regarded with deep suspicion in Britain.
Between 1958 and 1964 Gear was appointed curator of the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, where his policy of purchasing contemporary art was highly controversial, and from 1964 to 1975 he was head of the department of fine art at Birmingham College of Art. He Died in 1997.
He exhibited widely and has works in public collections in USA, Australia, with over 80 works are held in British public collections.