William Gear

Landscape Structure

1948

© The estate of William Gear

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Not on display

Artist: William Gear 1915–1997
Medium: Gouache on board
Dimensions: Support: 508 x 648 mm
frame: 670 x 775 x 32 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by the artist 1961
Reference: T00469

Display caption

Here a taut linear construction is set against a fiery red and yellow background. Writing about the work Gear commented that ‘the theme of the painting is, in general, a ‘presence in landscape’, abstracted from memory....In retrospect, the tangled, twisted structure would seem to be an evocation of war shattered buildings in Germany, where I was from 1945 to 1947’.

Gallery label, July 2008

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Catalogue entry

T00469 LANDSCAPE STRUCTURE 1948

Inscr. ‘Gear 48’ b.r.
Gouache on cardboard, 20×25 1/2 (51×65).
Presented by the artist 1961.
Exh: Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, November–December 1949 (no catalogue).

The artist wrote (1 February 1962): ‘The title is recent, given by me before presentation to the Tate; previously the picture was vaguely listed as “Composition”. The theme of the painting is, in general, a “presence in landscape”, abstracted from memory. Though probably not consciously at the time, in retrospect, the tangled, twisted structure would seem to be an evocation of war shattered buildings in Germany, where I was from 1945 to 1947. The style and technique is fairly typical of a series of gouaches and watercolours executed during the summer and autumn of 1948 based mainly on an abstract landscape motif.’

The exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery, in which this work was included, was held concurrently with an exhibition of works by Jackson Pollock.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I