Robert Arthur Wilson
(1884 - 1979)
Colour Wheel, 1919
£18,750
Robert Arthur Wilson (1884 - 1979)
£18,750
Size:
Height – 33cm
Width – 31cm
1 in stock
’Colour: its meaning and use, logic, mystery, symbolism and power’ was the title of a BBC radio broadcast talk given by Wilson in May 1920. Although Colour Wheel shows an awareness of Chevreul’s colour theories, its broader symbolism might equally relate to the void left by the war and the power of renewal as suggested by the continuous form of a circle.
His paintings were much studied by art students of the period, and were part of a wider discourse that was taking place at the time, led by intellectual luminaries such as James Wood. Exploring colour harmony was central to Wilson’s work and a subject on which he wrote and lectured.
In his introduction to R.A.Wilson’s Exhibition of Paintings and Colour Studies, that took place at the Guild of Decorators’ Syndicate, London, in May 1922, James Wood stated, somewhat prophetically: ‘Great advances were made by the artists of the last generation in the treatment of form and colour; it is doubtful whether the twentieth century will not be marked by certain discoveries.’
Painter in oil, tempera and watercolour, printmaker and teacher, horn
in Monk Wearmouth, County Durharrr. He was apprenticed to a sign-writer until 21, studying part-time at Sunderland School of Art. A
Government National Scholarship took him to the Royal College of Art
where he won a scholarship. Then studied at Acad mie Julian, in Paris,
and under Percyval Tudor-Hart, a major influence. Married the painter
Stella Louise Wilson and was the father of the artist Arthur Wilson,
Taught part-time in Surrey and London art schools. Showed RA, Paris
Salon and SGA and had a series of solo exhibitions including Sunderland
Art Gallery, notably in 1965. Wrote on tempera and the use of colour
and in 1972 privately published his Memoirs of an Individualist.
British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum hold his work, which
has an honest, art-and-crafts complexion. R A Wilson, as he liked to be
known, lived in Bletchingley. Surrey.
