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Wilhelmina Barns-Graham CBE RWA (British, 1912-2004) Hayle Estuary 30 x 37.5cm (11 13/16 x 14 3/4in) (including painted backing board) (WBG cat.no.02/75/OIL) image 1
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham CBE RWA (British, 1912-2004) Hayle Estuary 30 x 37.5cm (11 13/16 x 14 3/4in) (including painted backing board) (WBG cat.no.02/75/OIL) image 2
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham CBE RWA (British, 1912-2004) Hayle Estuary 30 x 37.5cm (11 13/16 x 14 3/4in) (including painted backing board) (WBG cat.no.02/75/OIL) image 3
Lot 45AR

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham CBE RWA
(British, 1912-2004)
Hayle Estuary

21 May 2025, 12:00 BST
Edinburgh

Sold for £6,400 inc. premium

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Wilhelmina Barns-Graham CBE RWA (British, 1912-2004)

Hayle Estuary
signed and dated 'W. Barns Graham 1973-5' (on the artist's prepared backboard, lower right), further signed, titled, and dated 'HAYLE ESTUARY/1973-5/W. Barns-Graham.' (verso), and signed, titled and dated 'Hayle Estuary/1973-5 W Barns-Graham' (on the frame)
oil and crayon on board
30 x 37.5cm (11 13/16 x 14 3/4in) (including painted backing board)
WBG cat.no.02/75/OIL

Footnotes

Provenance
With Aitken Dott & Son, Edinburgh, August - September 1981.
Private collection, UK (acquired from the above); thence by descent.

Exhibited
Edinburgh, Aitken Dott & Son, Festival Exhibition - W. Barns-Graham, 14 August - 5 September 1981, cat.no.30.
W. Barns-Graham Retrospective 1940 – 1989, touring to Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance, 10 June - 8 July 1989; City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 7 October - 18 November 1989; Perth Museum and Art Gallery, 9 December 1989 - 13 January 1990; Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews 19 January - 25 February 1990; and Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr, 5 May - 30 May 1990.

Barns-Graham's paintings convey her experience of nature and the motion of wind through an energetic abstraction. Visualising the natural world is a theme she explored throughout her career. While the 1960s had been dominated by her use of squares, in the first half of the 1970s the circle was Barns-Graham's preferred shape.

Hayle Estuary shows Barns-Graham looking at the world through eyes influenced by the prolonged circle paintings. Natural and observed shapes are quickly translated into her own notional forms. The viewer if left to consider if these lines relate to kites or birds perhaps. The present work is a precursor to Sea Poem1975-6 and Kite Series 41976 (both Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust). Natural and observed shapes are quickly translated into notional forms, with strong musical connotation as they remind us of notes on a stave. (Lynne Green, W. Barns-Graham; a studio life, 2011, Lund Humphries, p.205).

Additional information