Timeline 26 -St. Ives/British Modernism

Last stop was “Bauhaus”

• 1951

Peter Lanyon’s Porthleven was created for the 1951 Festival of Britain, which took 14 months to complete.
Lanyon destroyed it after an argument with Ben Nicholson, and repainted it in four hours. The result is an invigorating gust of a painting, with the clock tower of the fishing village from which it takes its name visible among a mass of swirling marks, as though we’re being blown around the village’s harbor.
You can really feel the sense of rush within this piece in the invigorating sharp edges and swish of the marks within this piece. Taking 14 months to complete and then ruining it because of one argument…that is a bold thing to do as an artist. I know I wouldn’t be able to do that as an artist ahahah I’d feel so much stress of I had destroyed an artwork I spent 14 months doing.
But as the…