Trust research revises Barns-Graham’s early exhibition record
Mattea Gernentz’s placement is confirming works and appearances from archival evidence, including Barns-Graham’s participation in a 1968 Demarco Gallery exhibition identified in a Scottish archive.
The Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust is reconstructing the early exhibition history of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham through a placement by Mattea Gernentz. She has been confirming artworks shown in relevant exhibitions and converting the findings into structured data.
In an account published by the Trust on 10 September, Gernentz says the work draws on existing archive material as well as diaries, invoices and correspondence used to establish missing exhibition details. The project records information that can be confirmed, rather than claiming to provide a complete account of the artist’s exhibiting history.
That limitation is relevant to an artist whom the Trust says exhibited internationally in the 1950s and 1960s, including in New York City, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and France. Gernentz also contacted the Penwith Archive about Barns-Graham’s relationship with the institution and sought information on shows associated with the Royal West of England Academy and the Women’s International Art Club.
According to the Trust article, a visit to the National Gallery of Scotland’s archive established Barns-Graham’s participation in ‘Scottish Paintings 1968’ at the Demarco Gallery. The article does not identify the work or works she exhibited there.
The research also produced an archival detail rather than evidence about a particular painting. At Tate Archives in London, Gernentz found a note from Barns-Graham to Ben Nicholson written backwards and requiring a mirror to read. It says that Barns-Graham was looking forward to Nicholson’s latest exhibition.
The Trust’s exhibition-history page says its lists of solo and group exhibitions will continue to be updated as further research brings information to light. Gernentz’s work shows how such a record can be revised through documents retained in different archives and newly consulted. Another line of research needed in Barns-Graham's oeuvre is her practice of repainting works from earlier periods for her later exhibitions - she was known to have done this before her late exhibition at the Barbizon Gallery, Glasgow, in 1988.
