Trevor Bell (lots 107-114)

One of the most important painters working anywhere today is Trevor Bell, and Bell’s first experiments in what we now call shaped canvases began in the late fifties. Patrick Heron, 1970

Introduction
Bell grew up in Leeds, where he studied at the College of Art (1947-1952) before teaching at Harrogate College of Art. In Leeds he met Terry Frost who was up from St Ives benefiting from a Gregory Fellowship at the university. On Frost's advice Bell and his wife moved to Cornwall in 1955. There Bell became a leading member of the younger generation of St Ives artists, exhibiting with the Penwith Society of Arts from 1956. Used to painting the grimey north of England, Bell responded with vigour and alacrity to the colour and light of his new surroundings capturing the atmosphere of the sea, coast and landscape of the south west in his distinctive and developing abstraction.

An early mentor in St Ives for Bell was Ben Nicholson who encouraged him to show in London. Another there who admired his youthful painterly zest was Patrick Heron. Bell's first one man show at Waddington Galleries on Cork Street in 1958 was a sell out success. In the catalogue Heron described him as 'The best non-figurative painter under thirty'. The same year Bell was awarded an Italian government sponsorship; in 1959 he won one of six main painting prizes at the first Paris International Biennale of Young Artists and in 1960 he was awarded a Gregory Fellowship by Leeds University, and moved back north.

During the following decade Bell enjoyed considerable commercial success both in the UK and abroad, including a succession of exhibitions at Waddington Galleries (1960, 1962 & 1964). It was during this period that he developed his interest in shaped canvases and the Tate Gallery purchased their first work by him. The decade culminated in a hugely successful show at the Richard Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh which toured to Northern Ireland and the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield. In the autumn of 1973 the Whitechapel Art Gallery mounted an exhibition of his recent paintings, and the following year he showed at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC.

In 1976 Bell moved to Florida to take up the post of Professor for Master Painting at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Availed of a warehouse-sized studio and with time to really develop his painting he produced large-scale, intensely coloured works, reflecting the influence of the climate and landscape on him. A source of inspiration too were the rockets launched from Cape Canaveral, the first he saw being the night time launch of Apollo 17 in December 1972. This and subsequent rocket shots had a lasting influence on his work. Over the 20 years he spent in America exhibitions of his work were mounted at the Academy of Sciences in Washington, the Metropolitan Museum and Art Center, Miami, The Cummer Gallery, Jacksonville and the Museum of Art at Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

In 1985 Bell was included in the the Tate Gallery's exhibition on St Ives 1939-64: Twenty-five years of Painting, Sculpture and Pottery and his work was featured in the Tate St Ives' inaugural show in 1993. Retiring from his Florida teaching post in 1996, he returned to Cornwall, setting up studios near Penzance. He was the subject of a full retrospective of his work at Tate St Ives in 2004 and in 2011 a further fourteen works were acquired by the Tate Gallery for their permanent collection. In the UK other examples of his work are in collections of The Arts Council of England, the British Council, the British Museum, Laing Art Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

TREVOR BELL (BRITISH 1930-2017)
TWO
acrylic on canvas laid on panel and styrafoam
56 x 58cm; 22 x 23in
unframed

Painted in 1967.