GEAR, WILLIAM (British, 1915-1997)

Painter of abstract compositions, daringly powerful in colour, who made a significant contribution to European painting through his association with Cobra group in the immediate Post-War years.
Studied at the Edinburgh College of Art and Edinburgh University Fine Art Class during 1932-37 under William Giles, John Maxwell and McTaggart, winning a travelling scholarship to Paris where he studied at the Académie Colarossi under Fernand Léger. On the strength of scholarship he travelled to Italy, Greece and the Balkans and exhibited there, and also became associated with the Cobra artists, exhibiting in Amsterdam and Denmark. Back in Paris he was associated with Ecole de Paris and met Milton Rosnick, Marcarelli and Rothko.
He exhibited in America with Jackson Pollock in 1949 before returning to London in 1950 and winning a Festival of Britain Purchase Prize the following year.
In 1952 his work was exhibited in Japan, New York and Sao Paulo and at the Venice Biennale in 1954.
Gear became Curator of the Tower Art Gallery in Eastbourne in 1964 and in the same year Head of the Faculty of Fine Art at Birmingham University until 1975, when he was awarded the Lorne Fellowship. He was also elected a Senior RA in 1995.
In 1987 at the Redfern Gallery, London, a fifty-year retrospective exhibition was held, followed by a tour exhibition from the Aberdeen Art Gallery, 1997-8.

Public collections include:
City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham
Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow
Insituto de Arte Contemporaneo, Lima, Peru
Museum of Art, Ohio
Museum of Art, Tel Aviv                                
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of NSW, Sydney
Scottish Art Council, Edinburgh
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Tate, London
Victoria & Albert Museum, London