Trevor Bell British, 1930-2017

Trevor Bell was born in Leeds in 1930.  He made his reputation as a leading member of the younger generation of St Ives artists, when he moved to West Cornwall in his 20s. There, he shared a studio with famed British sculptor, Brian Wall, and he helped to raise the profile of British abstract art on the international stage. Following Bell's enormously successful first one-man show at the Waddington Galleries in London, in 1958, he was awarded the Paris Biennale International Painting Prize and an Italian Government Scholarship. In 1960, Bell was offered the Gregory Fellowship in Painting at the University of Leeds and it was during this time that Bell developed his shaped canvases, which set his work apart from other abstract artists of his generation. After exhibiting successfully across the UK and USA,  and after a major one-man show at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1973, Bell was invited to become Professor for Master  Painting at the Florida State University in Tallahassee. There, he developed the large-scale, intensely coloured paintings for which he is best known. Eventually, Bell returned to Cornwall after 20 years in the United States,  where he continued to create new work and exhibit until his death in 2017.  Trevor Bell’s work has been purchased by numerous international museums and public and private collections, including the Tate Gallery which obtained 14 pieces for its permanent collection in 2011. His work is also held by The Arts Council of England, British Council, British Museum, Boca Raton, Laing Art Gallery, Ljubljana’s U.V.U Keleia Collection and the Victoria & Albert Museum.