Essay James Hamilton 1982

The smell of wet paint should be the most natural thing for a visitor to expect in a gallery, and that it comes as a shock is perhaps a symptom of the gulf that has developed over the years between the artist and the public, and between the making and the showing of art. Artists’ residencies will help to bridge this gulf, and the work of Peter Wilson and figurative painters of his generation represents a changed climate to that which, in 1953, made Winifred Nicholson paint out her contribution to an exhibition in Festival of Britain year because, as she confessed (to me) in 1977, “Ben thought it was too literary.”

James Hamilton

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