Gillian Ayres

Working as an abstract painter, Gillian Ayres rose to fame in the 1950s, the peak of Britain’s experimental art scene. Her large-scale works were created as if a performance itself, improvising and layering paints until the surface was coated as thick as two inches—post-humously earning her the nickname of ‘Britain’s Jackson Pollock’. The expansive, stretching formats resembled brightly coloured friezes, and Ayres often took public art commissions for murals in her youth. A skilled painter and printmaker, Ayres was a friend to Howard Hodkin and Henry Mundy—two of her contemporaries working with abstract painting. Her vibrant paintings have left a lasting mark on British art history.

Gillian Ayres’ (1930 – 2018) career took off while attending the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts for a BA in Fine Art (1950), with her inclusion in the Young Contemporaries show of 1949. Quickly gaining renowned, Ayres has received awards including the Arts Council of Great Britain Bursary (1975), the Charles Wollaston Award, Royal Academy of Arts (1989), the Blackstone Prize, Royal Academy of Arts (1988; 1990), the Gold Medal, Seventh Triennale — India, British Council (1991) and more. She was elected ARA in 1982, then elected as a Royal Academian in 1991. She participated in several historically significant exhibitions, such as ‘British painting in the 60’s as Whitechapel Gallery (1963), and has shown globally in countries such as China, Wales, the United Kingdom, the United States, Latvia, South Korea. Her work can be found in collections such as the Arts Council of Great Britain, the British Museum, Museo de Arte Sao Paulo (Brazil), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Tate Gallery, the Art Gallery of South Australia, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others.