Trevor Bell (British b. 1930)
One of the foremost pioneering Modern British post-war artists, Bell attended the College of Art, Leeds, 1947-52. In his twenties, working in West Cornwall, he made his reputation as a leading member of the younger generation of St Ives artists who established British art on the world stage.
Following his enormously successful first one-man show at Waddington Galleries, London, 1958, Bell was awarded the Paris Biennale International Painting Prize and an Italian Government Scholarship. Later he became a Gregory Fellow in Painting at Leeds University. After a large travelling retrospective in Scotland, Ireland and England in 1970 and a major one-man show at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1973, he was invited to become professor for Master (Graduate) Painting at the Florida State University in Tallahassee, where he developed the large-scale, intensely coloured paintings for which he is best known. In 1995 a group of his paintings were exhibited at the Tate Gallery St Ives and in 1995-96 he was included in the John Moores Liverpool exhibition. In 1998 the Florida State University honoured him with an Emeritus Professorship.
Bell's work has constantly challenged traditional ideas about the role of painting. Starting with his first shaped canvases in 1960 he has released his work from constrains of the rectilinear format, and has gone on to develop the free-form, large scale paintings that have established his reputation in the United States. 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. Bell's work has always responded to his own experience of the landscape around him. Whereas his Tallahassee works matched the expansive scale and bright colours typical of Florida, his Cornish paintings mirror the more restrained beauty of the English coast.
Awards
1958-9, Italian Government Scholarship
1959, Paris Biennale
1960, Gregory Fellow, Leeds University
Public collections include
Arts Council of Great Britain, London
British Council, London
British Museum, London
Getty Center for the History of Art, California
Laing Gallery, Newcastle
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery
Leeds City Museum
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona
Tate Gallery, London
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Bibliography
C. STEVENS, Trevor Bell, Samson & Company Ltd., Bristol, 2009
C. STEVENS, Trevor Bell (Tate St Ives), exhibition catalogue,Tate Publishing, 2004
T. BELL, Trevor Bell: A British Painter in America, exhibition catalogue, Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, 2003
Solo Exhibitions
2012, Trevor Bell - Link, Millennium Gallery, St Ives
2011, 80 Years Young, Waterhouse and Dodd, New York
2009, University of Leeds and Leeds City Art Gallery; Moving Right Along: paintings from 1948 to the present day, Waterhouse and Dodd, London; Millennium Gallery, St. Ives
2007, White and Colour, New Millennium Gallery, St Ives
2006, Before Sea - After Earth, Waterhouse and Dodd, London; Saïd Gallery, Saïd Business School, Oxford
2005, Heatscape - The Florida Six and Still - The New Paintings, Russel Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth; Calm Squares, Allusive Forms, New Millennium Gallery, St Ives; Still - the New Paintings, Lydon Fine Art, Chicago
2004, The Florida Years, Gulf Coast Museum of Art, Florida; Beyond Materiality - Paintings and Drawings 1967 - 2004, Tate, St Ives
2003, New Millennium Gallery, St Ives; Trevor Bell: A British Painter in America, Florida State University; Museum of Fine Art, Tallahassee, Florida; The Gulf Coast Museum, Largo, Florida
2002, Early Works on Paper, Galerie Pelar, Greenport; Paintings and Drawings 1956 - 62, Gillian Jason Gallery, London
2001, New Millennium Gallery, St Ives; Lydon Fine Art, Chicago
2000, Both Ends of the Stream, North Light Gallery, Huddersfield
1999, Stephen Lacey Gallery, London
1998, Hodgell Gallery, Sarasota, Florida; Falmouth College of Arts, Falmouth
1996, Illinois Centre, Chicago
1995, Art Collectors Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida; Mercantile Exchange Building, Chicago; Marsha Orr Contemporary Fine Art, Tallahassee, Florida
1994, Lydon Fine Art, Chicago
1993, Division of Cultural Affairs, Tallahassee, Florida; Lydon Fine Art, Chicago; Lin & Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
1992, Foster Harmon Gallery, Sarasota, Florida; Lydon Fine Art, Chicago; Jaffe/Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida
1992, 621 Gallery, Tallahassee, Florida
1991, Gloria Luria Gallery, Miami; Florida Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, Florida
1990, Foster Harmon Gallery, Florida; Lydon Fine Art, Chicago; Eve Mannes Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia; Gillian Jason Gallery, London
1989, New Art Centre, London; Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Gloria Luria Gallery, Bal Harbour, Florida
1988, Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida; Charleston College, South Carolina
1986, Foster Harmon Gallery, Sarasota, Florida; Cummer Museum, Jacksonville, Florida
1985, Metropolitan Museum, Coral Gates, Miami, Florida; Gloria Luria Gallery, Bal Harbour, Florida
1984, Big Magenta installation, Florida State University Center for Professional Development, Tallahassee, Florida
1983, Shaped Work from the 60s, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida
1982, National Academy of Science, Washington DC; Artspace, Miami, Florida
1981, Intimate Works on Paper, Virginia Miller Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida; Artspace, Miami, Florida; University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida
1980, Five Bar exhibited, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida; Four Arts Center, ICA, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida; Major Works. Virginia Miller Gallery, Coral Gables, Miami, Florida
1975 , Southern Cross exhibited, Bundestag, Bonn, Germany
1974, Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C.
1973, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1970 , Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh; Arts Council of Northern Ireland Gallery, Belfast; Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield; Park Square Gallery, Leeds
1969, Lancaster University Greenwich Gallery, London
1964, Waddington Gallery, London
1962, Waddington Gallery, London
1963 , Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford
1960, Waddington Gallery, London
1958, Waddington Gallery, London