Peter Lanyon

Peter Lanyon (1918-1964)

Peter Lanyon was a Cornish painter of lanscapes leaning heavily towards abstraction, he also made constructions, pottery and collage. Lanyon was born in St Ives the son of W H Lanyon and amateur photographer and musician. Whilst though his work Lanyon identified with the hardships of the Cornish farmers and miners, he was born into a wealthy family who had made their money through mining. He received lessons from the traditional marine painter Borlase Smart thus linking him to an earlier period of St Ives art before he joined with Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth who gave him lessons in Cubism.

Lanyon chose to make a more direct reference to the landscape than Gabo or Hepworth, visual and structural information concerning the Cornish landscape and life were combined with figurative suggestion in his final works. 

Lanyon talked of exploring edges such as that between sea and cliff, wind and land and the human body and places. The tactile surface and compact forms of his earlier work began to develop into a new flowing style on an increased scale, encouraged by his knowledge of Abstract Expressionism. In 1959 Lanyon took up gliding, his last works drew inspiration from his gliding in addition he also created reliefs which influenced his oil paintings. Peter Lanyon died in 1964 following a gliding accident.