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George Peter Lanyon (8 February 1918 – 31 August 1964) was a British painter of landscapes leaning heavily towards
abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or "concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abst ...
. Lanyon was one of the most important artists to emerge in post-war Britain. Despite his early death at the age of forty-six he achieved a body of work that is amongst the most original and important reappraisals of modernism in painting to be found anywhere. Combining abstract values with radical ideas about landscape and the figure, Lanyon navigated a course from
Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
through
Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
to a style close to Pop. He also made constructions, pottery and
collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...
. Lanyon took up gliding as a pastime and used the resulting experience extensively in his paintings. He died in
Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...
,
Somerset Somerset ( , ; Archaism, archaically Somersetshire , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the so ...
, as the result of injuries received in a gliding accident and is buried in St. Uny's Church, Lelant. In September 2010 Peter Lanyon’s work was honoured with a large-scale retrospective exhibition: Peter Lanyon 9 October 2010 – 23 January 2011 at
Tate St Ives Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculptur ...
. Curated by Chris Stephens, Head of Displays and Curator of Modern British Art at
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
, it was the first thorough museum retrospective for almost forty years. In 2015 Lanyon's Gliding Paintings were shown as a set in the Soaring Flight exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, London. In 2018 the catalogue raisonné of Peter’s oil paintings and three-dimensional works was published by Modern Art Press, after a decades work by Toby Treves.


Life and career

Peter Lanyon was born in St Ives, Cornwall, in 1918. He was the only son of W H Lanyon, an amateur photographer and musician. He was educated at
Clifton College ''The spirit nourishes within'' , established = 160 years ago , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent boarding and day school , religion = Christian , president = , head_label = Head of College , hea ...
. St Ives remained his base and he received after-school painting lessons from Borlase Smart. In 1937 he met Adrian Stokes who is thought to have introduced him to contemporary painting and sculpture and who advised him to go to the
Euston Road School The Euston Road School is a term applied to a group of English painters, active either as staff or students at the School of Drawing and Painting in London between 1937 and 1939. The School opened in October 1937 at premises in Fitzroy Street bef ...
where he studied for four months under
Victor Pasmore Edwin John Victor Pasmore, CH, CBE (3 December 190823 January 1998) was a British artist. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. Early life Pasmore was born in Chelsham, Surrey, on 3 December 1908. He ...
. In 1936–37 he also attended Penzance School of Art. In 1939 he met established artists
Ben Nicholson Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM (10 April 1894 – 6 February 1982) was an English painter of abstract compositions (sometimes in low relief), landscape and still-life. Background and training Nicholson was born on 10 April 1894 in Den ...
,
Barbara Hepworth Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a lead ...
and
Naum Gabo Naum Gabo, born Naum Neemia Pevsner (23 August 1977) (Hebrew: נחום נחמיה פבזנר), was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's post-Revolution avant-garde and the subsequent development of twentieth-century scul ...
who had moved to St Ives on the outbreak of the Second World War. Lanyon received private art tuition from Nicholson. The character of his work changed completely and he became very involved with making constructions. Throughout the 1940s the influence of Nicholson and Gabo remained very evident in his work. From 1940 to 1945 he served with the
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) a ...
in the Western Desert,
Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East J ...
and Italy. In 1946 he married Sheila St John Browne (1918/19 – 18 November 2015). Their first child, Andrew Lanyon, was born in 1947. Six children were born to the couple between 1947 and 1957; Andrew, Jane, Matthew, Martin, Anna and Jo. In 1946 he also became an active member of the Crypt Group of Artists and a founder member of the Penwith Society of Arts in 1949. He travelled around Italy, with his wife Sheila Lanyon, in the summer of 1950 and became a leading figure in the St. Ives group of artists. He had his first solo exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery, London in 1949 and taught at the
Bath Academy of Art Bath School of Art and Design is an art college in Bath, England, now known separately as Bath School of Art and Bath School of Design. It forms part of the Bath Spa University whose main campus is located a few miles from the City at Newton Pa ...
,
Corsham Corsham is a historic market town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England. It is at the south-eastern edge of the Cotswolds, just off the A4 national route, southwest of Swindon, southeast of Bristol, northeast of Bath and southwest o ...
from 1951 to 1957 (where William Scott was senior painting master). In 1950 he was invited by the Arts Council to contribute to their exhibition at the Festival of Britain. He spent four months in 1953 living in Italy on an Italian government scholarship. In 1954 he was awarded the Critics' Prize by the British section of the International Association of Art Critics. He ran an art school, St Peter's Loft, at St Ives from 1957 to 1960 with
Terry Frost Sir Terence Ernest Manitou Frost RA (13 October 1915 – 1 September 2003) was a British abstract artist, who worked in Newlyn, Cornwall. Frost was renowned for his use of the Cornish light, colour and shape to start a new art movement in ...
and William Redgrave and in 1959 he was awarded second prize at the 2nd John Moores Exhibition, Liverpool. Lanyon's first New York show was held at the Passedoit Gallery in 1953 and his first solo New York show was at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in 1957. On the 1957 trip he met
Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latv ...
, Motherwell and other artists, critics and collectors. Rothko's work particularly thrilled him. Lanyon was well received in New York and the increased demand for his work in the US combined with an expansion of work to the much larger scale of mural painting and in response to a new interest in gliding led to a looser and more open kind of painting. Lanyon began training as a glider pilot in 1959, as he explained: "to get a more complete knowledge of the landscape". He used his
gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word ''soaring'' is ...
experiences as the basis for paintings that gave an aerial perspective to his native Cornish landscape right through to his death in a gliding accident in 1964. In 1961 he was elected Chairman of the Newlyn Society of Artists and was elected a Bard of the
Gorseth Kernow Gorsedh Kernow (Cornish Gorsedd) is a non-political Cornish organisation, based in Cornwall, United Kingdom, which exists to maintain the national Celtic spirit of Cornwall. It is based on the Welsh-based Gorsedd, which was founded by Iolo Morg ...
, with the
bardic name A bardic name (, ) is a pseudonym used in Wales, Cornwall, or Brittany by poets and other artists, especially those involved in the eisteddfod movement. The Welsh term bardd ("poet") originally referred to the Welsh poets of the Middle Ages, who ...
''Marghak an Gwyns'' (Rider of the Winds) for services to Cornish art. In 1962 he spent seven months painting a mural commissioned for the house of Stanley J Seeger in New Jersey, USA. The following year he spent three months as a visiting painter at the San Antonio Art Institute in Texas, as well as visiting Mexico. He travelled to Prague and Bratislava in 1964 to lecture for the
British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...
. Lanyon died on 31 August 1964 at
Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...
,
Somerset Somerset ( , ; Archaism, archaically Somersetshire , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the so ...
, after a gliding accident.


See also

*
St Ives, Cornwall St Ives ( kw, Porth Ia, meaning " St Ia's cove") is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times it was commercially depen ...
* List of St. Ives artists


References and sources

;References ;Sources * Treves, Toby (2018) "Peter Lanyon: catalogue raisonne of the oil paintings and three-dimensional works" Modern Art Press * Treves, Toby, and Wright, Barnaby (2015) "Soaring Flight: Peter Lanyon's Gliding Paintings" Courtauld Gallery * Stephens, Christopher (2000) ''Peter Lanyon: at the edge of landscape''. 21 Publishing * Garlake, Margaret (2003) "The Drawings of Peter Lanyon" Ashgate * Causey, Andrew (2006) "Peter Lanyon: Modernism and the Land" Reaktion Books * Stephens, Christopher (2010) "Peter Lanyon" Tate


External links

*
Peter Lanyon Tate BiographyPeter Lanyon at the Tate Collection
*
The British Council's Peter Lanyon collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lanyon, Peter 1918 births 1964 deaths 20th-century English painters English male painters Bards of Gorsedh Kernow Painters from Cornwall Glider pilots People educated at Clifton College People from St Ives, Cornwall Royal Air Force personnel of World War II St Ives artists Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in England 20th-century English male artists Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1964