Modern British Art, Contemporary British Art at Jonathan Clark Fine Art
 
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4. Boat c.1942
Gouache & collage on paper
mounted on board
73/4 x 117/8 ins 19.5 x 30 cms

Wells visited Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth at Carbis Bay near St Ives in the spring of 1940 where he was introduced to Naum Gabo. He was deeply impressed by Gabo’s constructivist ideas and immediately fashioned a three dimensional response that Gabo later described to Nicholson as ‘the perfect first effort in spatial construction’. The present example is an important example of Wells exploring tension and balance in space through the use of a series of collaged geometric shapes interconnected within a linear structure and with the central area of radiating lines. The coloured concentric circles in each shape were created with a small brass turntable, a device used by Wells’ father to make microscope slides, and feature in Wells’ sole surviving relief construction of the period in the Tate collection.



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