William Gear's 50-year exploration of colour and form

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Veronica Davies visits a charming gallery in the English Cotswolds that is celebrating the vibrant, colourful work of William Gear

I first visited the Fosse Gallery some five years ago, to interview its owner, Sharon Wheaton, on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.  That, too, was on a chilly February day; this time I was attending the first day of the current exhibition of works on paper of William Gear (1915–97), and the vibrancy of colour of these mainly abstract works was a strong and welcome contrast to the wintery outdoors. 

This is in fact the third exhibition of Gear’s work hosted by the gallery and, in honour of the centenary of his birth, ranges across 50 years of the artist’s engagement with colour and form and experiments on paper with various media.  These were produced wherever he was living at the time, whether during a spell in post-war Paris in 1947– 50 (Barrier, 1947); in Eastbourne, where he worked as curator of the Tower Art Gallery from 1958–64 (Marine Encounter, 1959); or his later years in Edgbaston, Birmingham (Yellow Eye, 1996).  A slightly different, but no less striking, note is struck by an evocative Self-Portrait painted in Paris in 1947.

William Gear’s son, David, has been closely involved in the process of selection for this exhibition, and the works have never been shown in public before.  On the strength of this show, there is a case to be made for more attention to exhibiting the work of Gear and his contemporaries on the part of our national art museums: meanwhile, a visit to Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswolds before 21 February is highly recommended.