Peter (George Peter) Lanyon, British painter of landscapes b. 8 Feb 1918 d. 31 Aug 1964: AHP

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Painter of landscapes
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1918 - 1964 (46 years)

Name	Peter (George Peter) Lanyon
Suffix	British painter of landscapes
Birth	8 Feb 1918 [1]
Gender	Male
Birth	8 Feb 1918 (0 years)	St Ives, Cornwall [1]
	George Peter Lanyon - Peter Lanyon was born in St Ives, Cornwall, in 1918. He was the only son of W H Lanyon, an amateur photographer and musician
service-WWII	1940-1946 (27 years)	Royal Air Force [1]
	From 1940 to 1946 he served in the RAF
Trade,Profession,Job	1950 (31 years) [1]
	Painter of landscapes - British painter of landscapes leaning heavily towards abstraction.
Name	1961 (42 years)
	Elected a Bard of the Gorseth Kernow, with the bardic name Marghak an Gwyns (Rider of the Winds) for services to Cornish art
Death	31 Aug 1964 (46 years)	Taunton, Somerset [1]
	Lanyon died in a gliding accident; Taunton, Somerset... He died in Taunton, Somerset, as the result of injuries received in a gliding accident and is buried in St. Uny's Church, Lelant.
Death	31 Aug 1964 [1]
Burial	Abt 31 Aug 1964	St Uny Churchyard Old, Lelant, Cornwall [1]
Occupation	1937 (18 years) - Penzance School of Art, Penzance - studied at Penzance School of Art in 1937, at the Euston Road Art School in 1938, and then under Ben Nicholson and Naum *Gabo at St Ives. [1]
	1939 (20 years) - St Ives, Cornwall - under Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo at St Ives [1]
	1961 (42 years) - Newlyn Society of Artists, Newlyn - In 1961 he was elected Chairman of the Newlyn Society of Artists
Person ID	I11664	AHP
Last Modified	18 Jun 2024

Event Map

	Birth - George Peter Lanyon - Peter Lanyon was born in St Ives, Cornwall, in 1918. He was the only son of W H Lanyon, an amateur photographer and musician - 8 Feb 1918 - St Ives, Cornwall
	Occupation - under Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo at St Ives - 1939 (20 years) - St Ives, Cornwall
	Death - Lanyon died in a gliding accident; Taunton, Somerset... He died in Taunton, Somerset, as the result of injuries received in a gliding accident and is buried in St. Uny's Church, Lelant. - 31 Aug 1964 - Taunton, Somerset
	Burial - Abt 31 Aug 1964 - St Uny Churchyard Old, Lelant, Cornwall

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Pin Legend : Address : Location : City/Town : County/Shire : State/Province : Country : Not Set

Photos
Peter Lanyon | @bluecote | Tumblr | 1961
Ida Kar Peter Lanyon 1961 #peter lanyon#ida kar | @bluecote
Notes
Lanyon, Peter, 1918–1964 | Art UK - https://artuk.org/discover/artists/lanyon-peter-19181964
Peter Lanyon 1918–1964 | Tate - https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/peter-lanyon-1467

Sources

[S37] Wikipedia (Reliability: 3).
Peter Lanyon was born in St Ives, Cornwall, in 1918. He was the only son of W H Lanyon, an amateur photographer and musician. He was educated at Clifton College.[2] St Ives remained his base and he received after-school painting lessons from Borlase Smart. In 1937 he met Adrian Stokes who is thought to have introduced him to contemporary painting and sculpture and who advised him to go to the Euston Road School where he studied for four months under Victor Pasmore. In 1936–37 he also attended Penzance School of Art. In 1939 he met established artists Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo who had moved to St Ives on the outbreak of the Second World War. Lanyon received private art tuition from Nicholson. The character of his work changed completely and he became very involved with making constructions. Throughout the 1940s the influence of Nicholson and Gabo remained very evident in his work. From 1940 to 1945 he served with the Royal Air Force in the Western Desert, Palestine and Italy.

In 1946 he married Sheila St John Browne (1918/19 – 18 November 2015).[3] Their first child, Andrew Lanyon, was born in 1947. Six children were born to the couple between 1947 and 1957; Andrew, Jane, Matthew, Martin, Anna and Jo.

In 1946 he also became an active member of the Crypt Group of Artists and a founder member of the Penwith Society of Arts in 1949. He travelled around Italy, with his wife Sheila Lanyon, in the summer of 1950 and became a leading figure in the St. Ives group of artists.

He had his first solo exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery, London in 1949 and taught at the Bath Academy of Art, Corsham from 1951 to 1957 (where William Scott was senior painting master). In 1950 he was invited by the Arts Council to contribute to their exhibition at the Festival of Britain. He spent four months in 1953 living in Italy on an Italian government scholarship. In 1954 he was awarded the Critics' Prize by the British section of the International Association of Art Critics. He ran an art school, St Peter's Loft, at St Ives from 1957 to 1960 with Terry Frost and William Redgrave and in 1959 he was awarded second prize at the 2nd John Moores Exhibition, Liverpool.

Lanyon's first New York show was held at the Passedoit Gallery in 1953. After American collector Stanley Seeger introduced Lanyon to Catherine Viviane, he had his first solo New York show at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in 1957. On the 1957 trip to New York, he met Joseph Glasco who became a friend and later helped Lanyon work with Viviano.[4] He also met Mark Rothko, Motherwell and other artists, critics and collectors. Rothko's work particularly thrilled him. Lanyon was well received in New York and the increased demand for his work in the US combined with an expansion of work to the much larger scale of mural painting and in response to a new interest in gliding led to a looser and more open kind of painting.

Lanyon began training as a glider pilot in 1959, as he explained: "to get a more complete knowledge of the landscape". He used his gliding experiences as the basis for paintings that gave an aerial perspective to his native Cornish landscape right through to his death in a gliding accident in 1964.

In 1961 he was elected Chairman of the Newlyn Society of Artists and was elected a Bard of the Gorseth Kernow, with the bardic name Marghak an Gwyns (Rider of the Winds)[5] for services to Cornish art. In 1962 he spent seven months painting a mural commissioned for the house of Stanley J Seeger in New Jersey, USA. The following year he spent three months as a visiting painter at the San Antonio Art Institute in Texas, as well as visiting Mexico. He travelled to Prague and Bratislava in 1964 to lecture for the British Council.

Lanyon died on 31 August 1964 at Taunton, Somerset, after a gliding accident.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lanyon