Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

White, Black and Yellow (Composition February) 1957 is a painting in a landscape format that uses abstract elements of line and colour to describe a view onto a three-dimensional space. A series of densely-painted black lines or shafts stand across the painting at acute angles. Set behind these prominent black structures are thinner black lines: some of these lie perpendicular to the vertical black lines like a horizon-line or a scaffold; others are angled so they seem to describe perspectival lines leading from the foreground towards a more distant space. Within this structure are placed three yellow lozenges or patches of colour which punctuate and describe the middle ground. Each is physically close to a vertical black line of corresponding thickness, and their variation in size enhances the suggestion of depth behind the picture plane. The largest is closest to the lower edge of the painting while the two smaller ones, placed higher up, seem to be further behind. The suggestion of depth is also achieved by the overpainting of some black lines in the middle ground with white paint. This wider field of white and grey seems to describe a low-lying ground or floor (upon which some darker sections might be read as shadows) and a visual field saturated with light.

The use of colours in the painting’s title reflects how it describes a space in abstract terms and is less dependent than earlier works by Barns-Graham (such as Rock Theme, St Just 1953 [Tate T15724]) upon the physical forms of specific landscapes. The inclusion of the name of a month within this title might also suggest the artist’s awareness – whether at the time or subsequent – of developments she was making in her painting during this time. Furthermore, the allusion to ‘February’ suggests that the work connects with colours or forms experienced during this time of year. Although Barns-Graham did not advocate reading it in such specific terms, curator and historian Lynne Green notes that this painting might relate to the artist’s experience of snow-covered fields in North Yorkshire, where she had taken a short-term teaching position at Leeds School of Art (Green 2001). In its treatment of colour it certainly connects most clearly with the paintings Snow at Wharfedale II 1957 and Yellow Painting, painted in June 1957.

Green has also explained the importance of writings on the Golden Section to Barns-Graham’s work during the later 1950s, but explains that this framework ‘is rarely, if ever, rigidly adhered to: having established it, the artist then works across it and outside it’ (ibid.). White, Black and Yellow (Composition February) evidences the increased freedom with which she worked during 1957, stepping further away from the conventions of naturalistic depiction and focusing instead on how line and colour can help to recreate an equally ambient sense of space, light and structure.

Further reading
Lynne Green, W. Barns-Graham: A Studio Life, 2001, reproduced p.163.
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Movement and Light Imag(in)ing Time, exhibition catalogue, Tate St Ives, 22 January–2 May 2005, reproduced p.37.

Rachel Smith
November 2017