News
Art Gallery of South Australia: Tuesday Talks, June 18th 12:30pm
South Australian Artist Jeff Harris discusses his painting Pears with Knife with his daughter Dr Claire Harris
Join us to hear Jeff talk about his work and AGSA’s recent acquisition of Pears with Knife, 1969, oil on board.
Jeff Harris in his Rose Park studio with two of his daughters Claire and Miranda.
Exhibition of 30 paintings and 20 etchings arriving from Adelaide Australia to be shown in St Ives, Cornwall
JEFFREY HARRIS – Paintings and Prints from Cornwall and Australia 1968 - 2022
26 June – 18 July 2022
Paintings and Prints from Cornwall and Australia 1968 – 2022 is Harris’s first one-person exhibition in the UK since the 1960s. Showing at 3 Venues in St Ives, Cornwall and in our Virtual Reality gallery. Featuring oil paintings, reliefs and etchings shown for the first time in England, the exhibition includes a series of abstract paintings that represent the last work Harris made in the late 60s. These large oils on Masonite were recently rediscovered in Harris’s Australian studio and they are shown for the first time in this exhibition.
Born in 1932, Harris studied at Leeds College of Art before moving to St Ives in 1956. He shared Porthmeor Studio 7 with Tasmanian artist Gwen Leitch, before emigrating to Australia together in 1970.
Harris arrived in St Ives at a time the small seaside town was enjoying a growing international reputation as a centre for Modernist Art and a popular location for aspiring young artists. Bringing with him a solid training based on principles of ‘Bauhaus’ teachings influenced by artists Harry Thubron and Victor Pasmore, Harris was keen to find a personal visual language free of figuration and says, ‘My painting references a temporality and concern for place that evokes memory, early beginnings in Yorkshire, the landscape, the sea, and the places of Cornwall, and Australia. From these starting points my practice has developed both non-figuratively and with degrees of figuration to explore the visual language of colour and form’.
Harris continued to develop his work throughout the 1960s in St Ives and exhibited work in London before emigrating to Tasmania with Gwen Leitch, and their four children, in 1970. Subsequently moving to Adelaide, Harris pursued his painting career where he explored the colour and landscape of this new continent, exhibiting at galleries in Adelaide and Sydney. During this time Harris revisited St Ives on several occasions in effect keeping a connection to both the environments of South Australia and Cornwall, England, of which he states,‘my practice has always been informed by a deep connection to the landscape of West Penwith and to South Australia’
Harris was a Member of the Penwith Society of Arts and Crafts and lecturer at Falmouth School of Art and later at the Tasmanian School of Art and South Australian School of Art. His First solo exhibition was at the Rowan Gallery, London in 1961. Further one-person shows were held in Adelaide galleries, and at Robin Gibson Gallery Sydney.
Of the formative St Ives years, Harris says: “I learned a work ethic and what it was to be an independent artist when I moved, aged in my mid 20s, to St Ives. The professional support and friendship from artists including Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon, Bernard Leach, Tony O’Malley was significant. These artists set an example for the rest of my painting life. Aged 89, I still paint every day.
Harris’s work is held in Collections including Arts Council of Great Britain, Whitworth, Manchester University, Artbank, Australia, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia.
Awards; Leeds City Travelling Art Scholarship, British Council Acquisition Award, Kedumba Drawing Prize, Hysen Prize for Australian Landscape.
Exhibition Venues:
26 June - 1 July The Crypt Gallery, St Ives Society of Artists, St Ives
27 June - 18 July Hepworth Room, Penwith Gallery, St Ives
4 July - 18 July The Studio, Belgrave St Ives, Towednack
Images: The artist painting at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives 1960s. ‘Composition in Yellow’ 1968 oil on board; 98 x 105cm.
Further images, complete biography and fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Tony Magnusson and Peter Davies available on request:
info@belgravestives.co.uk
01736 794888
@belgravestives
Belgrave St Ives
PRESS RELEASE 18th FEB 2020
HISTORICAL SELLING EXHIBITION - ST IVES MODERNISM
ST IVES EXHIBITON 2020
30 Mar – 20 Apr 2020, Belgrave St Ives
Private View Sat 28 Mar 6 – 8pm
The largest exhibition to date by the gallery sees over 100 works by 50 artists associated with St Ives Modernism. It brings together key figures like W Barns-Graham, Terry Frost, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon, Ben Nicholson with lesser known names such as John Barnicoat, Bob Bourne, Jeffrey Harris and Inez Hoyton.
It is 22 years since the Belgrave Gallery (established London 1974) opened a second gallery in St Ives to specialize in showing the work of artists associated with Cornwall from 1930s to the present day. Following the inaugural exhibition in 1999 'St Ives – The Modern Movement' the gallery has presented an annual exhibition of accessible paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture by the leading artists of this period shown alongside less well known but interesting artists working at the same time.
This annual exhibition, usually held in the Spring, has gained something of a reputation among art collectors interested in St Ives Modernist Art, making it an important port of call whether visiting Cornwall or through the comprehensive printed exhibition catalogue and gallery website.
Artists included: John Barnicoat, W. Barns-Graham, Max Barrett, Trevor Bell, Anthony Benjamin, Sandra Blow, Bob Bourne Charles Breaker, Max Chapman, Tom Cross, Bob Crossley, Alan Davie, Michael Finn, Clifford Fishwick, Terry Frost, Jeffrey Harris, Barbara Hepworth, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Inez Hoyton, Bryan Ingham, Peter Lanyon, Jeremy Le Grice, Bernard Leach, Janet Leach, Padraig Mac Miadhachain, Margo Maeckelberghe, Margaret Mellis, John Milne, Denis Mitchell, Ben Nicholson, Kate Nicholson, Simon Nicholson, Harry Ousey, John Anthony Park, Victor Pasmore, Bryan Pearce, Douglas Portway, William Scott, Michael Snow, Troika Pottery, Doris Vaughan, John Wells, Karl Weschke and Guy Worsdell
The show will be held in gallery exhibition spaces with a launch just before Easter week. A fully illustrated colour catalogue is available. Higher resolution images are available for print.
#StivesModernism @belgravestives
NOTES TO EDITORS
For further information and images, please contact Richard Blackborow:
Belgrave St Ives, 22 Fore Street, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 1HE
richard@belgravestives.co.uk tel. 01736 794888
ENDS
