Grace GARDNER
Brian Stewart, former director of Falmouth Art Gallery, introduced his review of Grace Notes with the statement 'Grace Gardner can make colours dance. She spreads great joy through her vibrant and innovative paintings...in a long and distinguished career Grace has embraced a wide variety of art, but it is as an abstract painter that she is now chiefly known...' Her portrait painted by the artist Chester Bratten is in the permanent collection of the Falmouth Art Gallery, alongside a large collection of her own paintings, known as The Grace Gardner Gift, representing work painted since 1961.
Gardner is an American artist from Chicago, best known for her 'grid' paintings, who came to live in Cornwall in 1984. She settled in Flushing, near Falmouth. She is widely travelled, particularly in Europe. A trip to Japan in the early 1980s inspired her to experiment with the Chinese collage technique known as 'chine colle' from which she created a distinctive series of etchings. In St Ives, Roy WALKER encouraged her to develop the technique of monoprinting, which she uses to great effect.
Her work is held in collections in the USA, Europe and the Far East.
Grace Gardner died aged 93 in July 2013, after a short illness.
media
Painter of abstracts in oils and acrylics, mixed media, etching, monoprinting
works and access
Works incl: Ghosts (1961); The Dream Spectre (1961); 'Dedication of a Mirror' (from 'Poems from Greek Anthology') (1965); Who, Me? (1969); Memory Yielding (1974); etc. through to 2000 (21 paintings illus in Public Cat); Falmouth Art Gallery (38 works)
Grace Gardner is represented by the New Gallery, Portscatho.
exhibitions
Solo exhibitions: Falmouth Art Gallery 1985, 1996, foyer exhibition 1999
1986: RCM & RIC Three Spires Festival Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Pottery, Truro (Opening of the RCM or County Art Gallery, by the Royal Institution of Cornwall)
Mixed shows incl '20 Years of Contemporary Art at Falmouth Art Gallery' 2000
2000: Solo show at the New Gallery, Portscatho
2004, 2007: Solo shows at Mariners Gallery, St Ives
2012: 'Effortless Brushstrokes', Falmouth Art Gallery 11 Feb - 14 Apr
memberships
misc further info
references
Exh Cat: 20 Years of Contemporary Art at Falmouth Art Gallery 1980-2000
Gardner (2002) Once more from the beginning;
Gardner (2009) Grace Notes, A Life in Art;
Hoyle, H (Oct 2011 Women Artists in Cornwall www.cornishmuse.blogspot.com) 'Louise Connell at Falmouth Art Gallery'
Hoyle, H (Feb 2012 Women Artists in Cornwall www.cornishmuse.blogspot.com) 'Grace Gardner - a life in abstraction'
Hoyle, H (May 2012 Women Artists in Cornwall www.cornishmuse.blogspot.com) 'From blogging to printmaking - a journey of discovery'
Public Catalogue Foundation (2007) Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly