St Yves: Focus on Trevor BELL and Douglas SWAN

St Yves: Focus on Trevor BELL and Douglas SWAN

An important Modern British post-war artist, Bell made his reputation as a leading member of the younger generation of St Ives artists who established British art on the world stage. Bell's work has constantly challenged traditional ideas about the role of painting. In 1960 he started to experiment with shaped canvases, focusing on the interaction between three-dimentional form and his two-dimensional brush strokes. His work now owes a lot to sculpture with the shaped contours activating and reacting to the spaces in which they are placed. These canvases are no longer static or neutral objects on which to paint, they have a character of their own and a new dialogue is possible between their animated form and Bell's painted marks.

Following studies at the Dundee College of Art 1943-1953, Swan began exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy. In 1954 Swan was awarded the RSA scholarship in London, where he befriended William Scott. Together they painted in Somerset, Cornwall and then in the US. In 1958 Swan was awarded a British Council Scholarship for study in Italy. In Milan, Swan witnessed the vibrant contemporary art scene established by Lucio Fontana, Enrico Castellani and Roberto Crippa. During the 1960's Swan moved to Switzerland and then to Bonn in Germany, where he received honours and invitations to exhibit at important one-man shows and group shows about Abstract Art. In London, Swan exhibited at the Young Contemporaries and at Gimpel Fils. Swan died in Germany in 2000.