east wing

Barns-Graham settled in 1940 in the artists’ village of St Ives in Cornwall, which, during the 1950s and 1960s and under the influence of artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, developed into a center of modernist art. From the 1960s onwards, she divided her time between Cornwall and Scotland.

Initially starting as a landscape painter in a naïve style, she gradually developed into an artist who explored the underlying structures of the landscape.

Her predominantly abstract paintings depict the formative forces of nature—processes that simultaneously create order and bring about continuous change.

In her later work, the colors of the landscape take an increasingly central role, resulting in expressive, rhythmic compositions full of light and movement.

With her focus on nature and landscape, Barns-Graham closely aligns with the artists who define the signature of Museum Belvédère’s collection. Like Willem van Althuis, Sjoerd de Vries, Jan Snijder, and Robert Zandvliet, she did not aim to depict the landscape as a visual fact, but rather to represent nature as a formative force.

During the exhibition, works by these Frisian artists will also be on view in the museum’s concurrent collection presentation.

Living the Landscape

Exhibited: May 28 – September 25, 2022

Barns-Graham’s work was previously shown at Museum Belvédère as part of the group exhibition Living the Landscape – Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, and the Artists of St. Ives (1939–1975).

This was the first museum exhibition outside the United Kingdom focusing on the modernism of the St. Ives School during and after World War II. Wilhelmina Barns Graham – Nature in Motion serves as a continuation of the successful 2022 exhibition.

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