William Gear English, 1915-1997
Works
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Pink and Red Verticals, 1959£2,100.00
Biography
Pink and Red Verticals, 1959
William Gear (1915–1997) was a pioneering Scottish abstract painter whose career bridged the avant-garde movements of continental Europe and postwar British modernism
. Born in Methil, Fife, Gear studied under Fernand Léger in Paris before serving as a "Monuments Man" during World War II, where he helped secure and recover art works in occupied Germany. After the war, he became the only British artist (alongside Stephen Gilbert) to join the influential CoBrA group in Paris, developing a signature style characterized by vibrant blocks of color divided by heavy, architectural black lines or "armatures". He achieved national notoriety in 1951 when his abstract work Autumn Landscape won a major prize at the Festival of Britain, sparking intense public debate over modern art. Beyond his painting, Gear was a trailblazer in fine art screen-printing and held significant leadership roles as the curator of the Towner Art Gallery and Head of Fine Art at Birmingham Polytechnic. Elected a Royal Academician in 1995, his legacy as a relentless "truth-seeker" in abstraction continues to be recognized through retrospectives and his presence in global collections, including the Tate and the Victoria & Albert Museum.