Biography
One of the most important and influential of Post-War British artists, Peter Lanyon was born in St. Ives, Cornwall in 1918. Principally an artist of landscape and seascape genres, Lanyon was to move into abstraction / abstract expressionism as the post-war years progressed. Studying under Victor Pasmore at the Euston Road School, Lanyon was to thence study from 1936-37 at the Penzance School of Art, meeting and befriending both the renowned Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. Tutored for some time thereafter by Nicholson, Peter Lanyon was to hold his first solo exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery, London in 1949.
In 1950 Lanyon was invited by the Arts Council to contribute to their exhibition at the Festival of Britain. In 1954 he was awarded the Critics' Prize by the British section of the International Association of Art Critics. Lanyon ran an art school, St Peter's Loft, at St Ives from 1957 to 1960 with fellow artist Terry Frost (RA) and in 1959 he was awarded second prize at the 2nd John Moores Exhibition, Liverpool.
Peter Lanyon's reputation grew further thereafter, however his career was a short one, dying aged forty six in 1964, following a gliding accident.
Works by Lanyon are held in many prestigious national and international public and private collections, including the Tate Britian, National Museum Cardiff, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Tate Modern, British Council, Govt Art Collection, National Galleries of Scotland and Manchester Art Gallery.