Date of Birth: 1930
Place: London
Profession: Artist
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Gillian Ayres decided to become a painter at the age of fourteen, and studied at Camberwell School of Art from 1946-50, before running the AIA Gallery with painter Henry Mundy whom she married.
As a young artist in the 1950's, Ayres was closely involved with leading British abstract artists including Roger Hilton. Ayres was quick to respond to European tachism and American abstract expressionism, creating a body of work that placed her in the forefront of her generation. In the sixties she was the only woman artist to be represented in the important 'Situation' exhibitions, showing large paintings combining oil and paint that aimed for the sublime using very radial drip and pour techniques of action painting.
Gillian Ayres defined her career by ranges of style and manner. In the sixties she created glamorous and decorative images in keeping with the hedonistic mood of that time. In the seventies Hans Hofmann inspired Ayres and returned back to an extreme and painterly extraction. Later in that decade Ayres moved back to oil painting and went on to develop her exclusive colourful style and has made an impressive mark on British art.
Her first solo show was at Gallery One in 1956, although she featured in many key group shows thereafter, for example Whitechapel Art Gallery's seminal British Painting in 1965. Her solo shows however, are an impressive list: Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1981; Serpentine Gallery, 1983; and the Royal Academy in 1997. 1
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