Wilhelmina Barns-Graham
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Wedel Art presents a special installation Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s (1912 – 2004) pioneering approach to abstraction and colour. Barns-Graham was a leading member of the St. Ives group and this special presentation of her work offers an introduction into a long-overlooked British modernist and the evolution of the genre.
Born in St Andrews, Fife, Barns-Graham trained at Edinburgh College of Art before moving to Cornwall in 1940. Although largely grounded in abstraction, Barnes-Graham’s work also offers a glimpse into her coastal environment and experience with synaesthesia, a condition in which letters, words and numbers evoked specific colours. Her body of work – and specifically the exhibition at display at The Arts Club – shows a remarkable record of feeling, memory, sensation and the emotional properties of painting.
This installation, curated by Amelie von Wedel and Pernilla Holmes, comes ahead of her major solo exhibition at Tate St Ives in 2026, providing viewers with a rare opportunity to see her work in an intimate setting.