Gillian Ayres

Gillian Ayres (CBE) is one of the pioneering figures of British Abstraction, best known for her large-scale explorations of form and colour. Ayres studied at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and first exhibited her paintings with the Young Contemporaries in 1949. In 1989 she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize, and in 1991 was elected a Royal Academician. She was greatly inspired by the Abstract Expressionists as well as Matisse and Gauguin, and her lyrical forms stand in contrast with the hard-edged reductive work of many of her contemporaries.

As well as being celebrated for her joyful canvases she was an accomplished print maker, using a broad variety of techniques including woodcuts, etchings and monoprints. Mainly completed in her later years, these works push the medium to its limit and showcase the vitality and playfulness Ayres is famous for. As well as her unrelenting preoccupation with line, shape and pigment, Ayres pays close attention to the textural quality of her prints. She combines traditional techniques of etching with the experimental use of carborundum. Her woodblocks contain unique, hand-coloured elements applied to Japanese Unryushi paper.

Ayres's unremitting devotion to making original prints has culminated in a large body of graphic work which now rivals the vividness and magnitude of her abstract paintings. She continued to develop her practice until her death in 2018, exhibiting major solo exhibitions at Tate Britain, Kettles Yard and The Serpentine. Her vital and energetic compositions enable a poetic dialogue between forms, showcasing the sheer joy she finds in making. As Ayres herself states, ‘Shapes. Spaces. Colour. It's the way I see the world… Feasting on beauty."

Major solo exhibitions of Ayres' work have been held at CAFA Art Museum, Beijing (2017); National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (2017); Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2010); Southampton City Art Gallery (2005); Royal Academy of Arts, London (1997); Manchester City Art Gallery (1993); Serpentine Gallery, London (1983); Museum of Modern Art Oxford (1981); Kettle's Yard, Cambridge (1978) and Arnolfini, Bristol (1964).

Ayres held a number of teaching posts in various art schools, including Bath Academy of Art, Corsham; St Martin's School of Art, London, and Winchester School of Art. She left teaching in 1981, and moved to an old rectory in North Wales to become a full-time painter. In 1989 she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize, and in 1991 was elected Royal Academician. Ayres was appointed a CBE in 2011.

Her paintings and prints are held by major museums and galleries around the world including Tate, London; British Museum, London; Arts Council, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Ulster Museum, Belfast; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Art, Boston; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Museum of Modern Art, Brasilia.