Gwyther Irwin 1931-2008

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  Untitled 1974

Artist Information

Gwyther Irwin was a painter, designer, collagist, relief artist and teacher who worked in a variety of materials. He was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, but spent his youth in North Cornwall. He attended Bryanston School, where he was taught by Roger Hilton.

For several years in the middle 1950's he studied illustration at Goldsmiths' College School of Art and design at Central School of Arts and Crafts, 1951-54, having his first solo show at Gallery One in 1957. This was followed in 1958 with a one man show at ICA, followed by a string of shows at Gimpel Fils during the 1960's. He also went on to exhibit at Marlborough Fine Art, New Art Centre and abroad.

Gwyther Irwin was involved in many important group shows, among them Situation, RBA Gallery, and the Paris Biennale, both 1960; the Art of Assemblage, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1961; Situation, Arts Council, and British Painting in the Sixties, Whitechapel Art Gallery and tour, both 1963; XXX11 Venice Biennale, from which Peggy Guggenheim bought work, 1964; Recent British Painting, Tate Gallery, 1967; Contemporary British Painting, Allbright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, America, 1974; Three Decades of Artists, RA, 1983; LG and RA Summer Exhibition both 1987; and Twentieth Century British Painting, Redfern Gallery, 1993.

In 1965 he gained a commission for bas-relief in Portland Stone for British Petroleum. Held series of teaching posts at Hornsey College of Art, Chelsea School of Art and Brighton Polytechnic, of which he retired as head of fine art in 1984, after 15 years there.

Gwyther Irwin said that he "wrote" his pictures, the equivalent of Persian carpets with their own iconography. Irwin's later solo shows included a retrospective at Gimpel Fils, 1987; The Gallery at John Jones, 1992; Redfern Gallery, 1994; The Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, 1995; and RWA and tour, 1996.

The Redfern Gallery showed early work in 2006. Tate Gallery and Arts Council hold examples of his work.