Dark Traverse, 1961
Oil on Canvas
Signed, titled and dated verso
152.4 x 122.0 cm (60 x 48 inches)

Notes:
Bryan Wynter studied at the Slade and at the Westminster School of Art in the late 1930s. He was a figurative painter until 1956 and was influenced by Surrealism, Cubism and by the English Neo-Romantic painters. He was a deeply thoughtful, independent minded man and a conscientious objector. He read widely, being especially interested in the writings of philosophers such as Bergson and Jung. After World War II he moved to the St Ives area, becoming a friend of Patrick Heron who lived nearby.

Although his work became abstract from 1956 onwards Wynter always stressed its links with nature, noting that, 'I used to be a landscape painter. Am I still influenced by landscape? The
landscape I live among is bare of houses, trees, people; is dominated by winds, by swift changes of weather, by moods of the sea...These elemental forces enter the painting and lend their qualities without becoming motifs.' It was the works of the 1960s (such as Dark Traverse) and later that gained Wynter his international reputation. He was represented in major international shows. The Hayward gallery mounted a retrospective exhibition in 1976 and Tate St Ives had an important show in 2001 which featured his kinetic constructions. His work is represented in the Tate and in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
POA