Coastline

Wilfred Avery was brought up in South Molton, North Devon. He was first educated at Barnstaple Grammar School and then at St Paul’s College, Cheltenham. While at Cheltenham, Avery’s growing interest in modern painting was reinforced by meeting Paul Nash who encouraged him to look to Paris for influences which would subsequently shape his work. This landscape is one of many works by Avery to depict the Devon coast.

Here, Avery was working in a style where he blended observed landscape with memories. Growing up in South Molton, Devon’s sea, cliffs and shore were important to him.  The agricultural land is simplified into geometric planes of colour, broken by Avery’s typical soft and rounded abstract forms.

After a time working in London and campaigning for Gay Rights, Avery returned to Devon in 1979 with his partner Ray Crossley. They later moved to Brighton in 1995.

Visual description: An abstract landscape. The top third of the painting is a single block of blue. The lower two-thirds are made of different shapes, all fitting together through a mixture of straight and flowing edges. The shapes are all different colours, giving the impression of a patchwork. It resembles a landscape broken down into geometric planes.