Gillian Ayres The radical female artist who feasted on colour

She spoke about indulging in colour, feasting on beauty, feeling a little giddy when drinking in glorious hues and textures - and not searching too deeply for meaning.

- Steven Morris

So in these gloomy times, a major retrospective of the work of the artist Gillian Ayres in her adopted Devon homeland may be just the job.

Entitled A Life in Colour, the show at the Box in Plymouth, which has just won the prestigious Art Fund museum of the year award, is billed as a re-examination of one of Britain’s most radical female artists.

Hannah Hooks, contemporary art curator at the Box, described Ayres, who died in 2018 aged 88, as formidable and brilliant.

“Her fearless commitment to painting is something to be celebrated,” she said. “She came of age in a postwar British art world dominated by men and remained entirely faithful to painting as it went in and out of fashion. Gillian was a painter’s painter. The fact that she isn’t better known by more people is something we hope to change.”