Gillian Ayres

This beautifully produced volume is the definitive monograph on Gillian Ayres (born 1930), whom journalist Andrew Marr describes as “probably the finest abstract painter alive in Britain.” Working since the 1950s, Ayres has been celebrated for more than six decades for her use of vibrant color, impasto, tachiste effects and bold forms to create exuberant compositions full of movement and energy. In the 1950s, she applied oils and household paint with rags and brushes; in the 1960s, she created light-filled images in oils or acrylics; in the 1970s, she approached the canvas as an expanse to be filled with a painterly alloverness. Later in that decade and into the 1980s, she began to use thick impasto in carefully designed arrangements; and in recent decades, she has developed simplified organic motifs.
This book spans her long career, including all of her major paintings, and a dedicated section on her prints. It also features many previously unpublished photographs of the artist in the studio and at home and other ephemeral materials, making the publication the last word on Ayres’ life and work.