The Abstract Glaciers of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912–2004) is not a well-known artist, despite a long and distinguished career. Born in St Andrews and trained at the Edinburgh College of Art, she was, however, most associated with St Ives. Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, and other pioneers of abstraction based themselves on the Cornish coast from the 1930s and influenced Barns-Graham’s landscape-inspired, geometric style. Yet, she was considered a fringe member of the group: only three of her works were included in the Tate’s major 1985 St Ives exhibition.

A trip to the Lower Grindelwald Glacier in Switzerland in 1949 was to prove pivotal. Barns-Graham travelled widely throughout her life and painted works inspired by Spain, Italy, the Scilly Isles, and Scotland, where she had a house since 1960. She also shifted stylistically, employing stronger colors and more two-dimensional, hard-edged geometric shapes, as well as mixed media. However, she continued to return to the motif of the glacier and the remembered impact of that first experience.

The Book

Since her death, Barns-Graham’s reputation has been promoted by the Barns-Graham Trust, which maintains a large collection of her work. They are behind the publication of The Glaciers and Rob Airey, who edits the book, is the trust’s director. The book is designed as a catalogue with introductory essays and a comprehensive, illustrated list of Barns-Graham’s glacier-inspired works. This means there are a lot of small-scale reproductions and perhaps fewer full-page images than one might wish.

The essays are eclectic, ranging from a biographical introduction to a selection of poetry and a scientific article by Professor Peter Nienow on the formation and characteristics of glaciers and the impact of the climate crisis. Whatever angle you are coming from, there is something here to interest you but for the general reader, there is perhaps not enough context, either of Barns-Graham’s other work or of the mid-20th century British art scene she inhabited. I would advise anyone who feels short-changed to check out the Trust’s website, which has an excellent online collection of works and more biographical information.

The Contributors

The importance of Barns-Graham’s work is underlined by having Martin Kemp write the book’s foreword. Kemp was head of the history of art department at St Andrews’ University for many years and knew Willie (as her friends called her). However, he is a Renaissance scholar and Leonardo da Vinci expert with an interest in art and science. Kemp’s short, forceful summary of the power and eloquence of the artist’s work sets the tone for the rest of the book.

There are creative contributions from poets Alyson Hallett and Holly Corfield Carr, which tap into the lyricism of Barns-Graham’s paintings, and an imagined letter from Mark Cousins, whose film A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things acts as a companion piece to the catalogue. It is something else I would advise anyone wanting to explore the artist further to seek out. Solid art history chapters by Alice Strang and Tilly Heydon chart the seminal visit to Switzerland and the changing exploration of glaciers in four distinct periods throughout Barns-Graham’s career.

Beyond Grindelwald

Barns-Graham’s visit to Switzerland in 1949 is recorded in letters and photographs, as well as the sketches she made. We see her roped to guides as she climbs the glacier and read her excitement. The glacier was a tourist attraction with steps carved into it and an ice grotto, but that did not diminish the sense of awe which she felt. Its impact on her work was immediate and within a matter of weeks she was exhibiting drawings of the glacier which directly transferred those emotions, described by one reviewer as a “wild sort of exploration.” The Grindelwald visit also coincided with greater success. Her painting Upper Glacier was bought by the British Council in 1950, her work became more widely exhibited and critically acclaimed.

Even when she moved on from directly representing glaciers in her work, Barns-Graham described how her visit to Switzerland had changed her view of all landscape and specifically developed her interest in “the corroded forms in Nature.” In the late 1970s she returned to the subject of glaciers more directly: Glacier Field reprises some of the clear green-blue colouration, but in flattened form, dominated by combed, linear patterning. In the mid-1980s, shards and geometric facets offered another version of the subject, often with surprising color variations.

Observing Glaciers

The most interesting chapter in The Glaciers presents “A Glaciologist’s Look”. The abstracted qualities of Barns-Graham’s work create a distance between her paintings and the nature that inspired them. However, Nienow brings you face-to-face with the scientific realities of what she was recording. He explains how glaciers are formed and why they reached their peak advance around 1850. The almost unnatural intensity of blue that infuses many of her works is explained technically and described lyrically from experience. Barn-Graham’s use of sharp line is similarly explained in terms of fractures and foliation (layering of ice), and there are excellent photographs which underline how closely observed her paintings are.

Nienow gives Barns-Graham’s work a whole new dimension and depth but also makes you rethink glaciers. Far from solid masses of ice, he describes them as fluid, almost living entities. It makes the reality of the loss sustained due to climate change tangible and terrible. Today, the Grindelwald Glacier is half the size it was when she visited.

Glaciers and the Sublime

Nienow’s chapter contains an illustration of Thomas Fearnley’s Grindelwald Glacier but included as an illustration of glacial retreat rather than in the context of the Romantic sublime. What The Glaciers perhaps lacks is that broader contextualization of Barns-Graham’s work. The artist’s trip to Switzerland and her powerful emotional response to the scenery she encountered there place her very much within that tradition. Other British artists, including JMW Turner, had previously recorded their own responses.

The inclusion of poetry and personal essays in the book underline this Romantic subtext. “The ice came to life” writes Hallett: “Distant sounds boomed.” Meanwhile, Cousins writes about Barns-Graham’s “unique pilgrimage” and describes her as a “lone wolf.” These are not just flights of fancy. She described glaciers in similar ways herself, famously wanting “to combine in a work all angles at once, from above, through and all around, as a bird flies, a total experience.” It is very difficult to read this book and not get equally emotionally involved.

Reassessing Barns-Graham

The Glaciers is a very useful addition to the ongoing process of putting Wilhelmina Barns-Graham back where she belongs in the history of British 20th-century art. A serious, scholarly catalogue of her paintings of glaciers, it is never just a dry academic read. There is a real effort to engage the general public. However, the publishers have perhaps focused on accessibility in terms of cost and length at the expense of providing a more comprehensive study. If you pick this up knowing little about the artist, you will probably find yourself wanting to do further reading to flesh out the biographical information and look at her work more generally.

Having said that, The Glaciers is beautifully and thoughtfully put together. It absorbs you. It leaves you wanting to know more about Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, and it will probably make you want to go to Switzerland to see the Grindelwald Glacier for yourself. While you still can.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: The Glaciers, ed. by Rob Airey was published by Lund Humphries in 2024 in the UK and 2025 in the US. You can get your copy through the publisher’s website.