Pierrette and I wanted to see Peter Lanyon’s work at the Courtauld Gallery. It’s a beautiful place and it was Pierrette who introduced me to it quite a few years ago.
I didn’t know this English painter and sculptor, but had seen references to his work on Mutual Art and suggested that would be on our list to do in London. His work is central to any assessment of St Ives painting where he lived and worked, since he experienced at first hand and was influenced by Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth (remember me talking about her?) and Naum Gabo.
Lanyon chose to make more direct reference to the local landscape than Gabo or Hepworth. Visual and structural information concerning this Cornish fishing harbour was combined with figurative suggestion in the final painting.
What is amazing about his work that it is drawn from his inspiration from gliding which he began in 1959. Light years ago I had a German friend who had a glider and although I spent weekends driving kilometers to pick him up in some field or another, I also was able to go up with him a couple of times. It’s a real experience. Lanyon’s work is very representative of gliding exposure.
Lanyon talked about exploring vertiginous edges such as the "junction of sea and cliff, wind and cliff, the human body and places". His work took on a new look when he started gliding. The tactile surfaces and compact, enclosed forms of the early 1950s began to expand into a new flowing style on an increased scale, encouraged by his knowledge of Abstract Expressionism. (Pollock, Rothko…) This school I discovered for the first time with Mother in the 90’s and have followed it every since.
The titles for me are not necessary and yet when I looked at them brought up far away images which one never forgets after a glider flight.
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| Silent coast 1957 |
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| Soaring Flight 1960 |
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| Thermal 1960 |
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| Solo Flight 1960 |
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| Bird Wind 1955 |
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| Calm Air, 1961 |
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| Near Cloud, 1964 |
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| Glide Path, 1964 |
While Lanyon's death after a gliding accident at 46 in 1964 made him a legendary figure among artists. It certainly cut off a spectacular artistic progress and left him far less well known than he should be. Well that’s how I feel about him.
We had of course seen the Auerbach together and I saw so much more in those paintings the second time around. Now we would go over to the Royal Academy of Arts to book for Ai Weiwei.
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