Peter Lanyon: Abstracting the Cornish Landscape

Peter Lanyon (1918-1964) was a Cornish artist born and bred in St. Ives. After studying at Penzance School of Art and travelling he joined the RAF as an engineer. Influenced by the avante-garde modernists Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo who came to St. Ives in 1939, Lanyon developed a semi-abstract style. In 1946 he became a member of the Crypt group of artists in St Ives and a founder of the Penwith Society.  He went on to exhibit his  painting ‘Porthleven’ at the Festival of Britain in 1951. Not long after visiting the American Abstract Expressionist show at the Tate in 1956, Lanyon began showing his work in New York. 

This lecture by Art Historian Catherine Wallace looks at the development of this unique artist’s voice through his paintings, prints and sculptures which have at their heart a deep connection and understanding of the Cornish landscape. 

Lanyon was a landscape painter but he felt that, “The real place of the painter today in a landscape tradition is in the creation of works which transform the environment and fill people with images to understand the immense range of human curiosity particularly in the sciences. Landscape then is not any longer tied specifically to nature; as the country, but infuses a painting with a sense of the forces beyond human scale.” 

Talk by Catherine Wallace

Image: Wreck, 1963, by Peter Lanyon (1918 - 1964) ©Tate

Age Guidance: 18+

Peter Lanyon: Land, Sea & Air Abstracting the Cornish Landscape

Thursday 1st April 2.30pm

Tickets: £13.00

A £1 Poly Fund payment is added to each ticket sold. A 50p booking fee is also applied per ticket for online and telephone transactions.