Winifred Nicholson, Recollect 1973. Tate. © The Trustees of the estate of Winifred Nicholson.
4 rooms in Modern Conversations
Explore what it means to 'see' beyond the visual
Extending from the luminous paintings of Partou Zia, this room brings together ideas of colour and light. From creating optical sensations to picturing the imagination, these artworks unravel human experience as both seen and unseen, and as shaped through memories and collective beliefs.
As twenteth-century science and politics rapidly developed, some artists pursued a more personal vision by drawing on dreams and folklore. Colour was activated as an emotive tool or to depict images from the deeper mind. Connecting with the unconscious, some works here use colour to imply mystical or surreal aspects of modern art and life. Others apply the optical effects of colour and light on the eyes, heightening sensation or emotional responses. Contemporary artists continue to evolve the potential of colour to summon human experience in all its forms.
About Partou Zia
Zia's Visionary paintings combine the myths and memories of her childhood in Iran with the quietness of her later life in Cornwall. Zia explored how colour could transcend moments of both real and remembered experiences. Her canvases combine traces of the real world, suffused with the heightened light and spectrum of colours found in memory and imagination.
The daughter of a communist activist, Zia arrived in London from Tehran in 1970 as a political refugee. This imposed displacement was a potent influence in her work. Zia's work embodies her search for the personal spirituality she was denied due to the circumstances of her early life.
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Frances Hodgkins, Loveday and Ann: Two Women with a Basket of Flowers 1915
Frances Hodgkins came to Britain in 1901 from the confined artistic scene of New Zealand. Spending long periods in Cornwall, home to the Newlyn and St Ives Schools, and in Paris, where she taught at the Académie Colarossi, Hodgkins ploughed her own furrow. In typically individualistic style, this portrait combines the mobility of watercolour with the intensity of oil, showcasing the artist's idiosyncratic drawing and quirky sense of colour.
Gallery label, February 2010
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artworks in Vision and Visionary: Partou Zia
Joan Miró, Women and Bird in the Moonlight 1949
This work belongs to a series of paintings that Miró made in 1949–50 in Majorca. Miró’s use of simple shapes and bright colours constitutes a highly personal visual language, often charged with symbolic meaning. In this case, the women and bird of the title are easily identifiable under the moon and stars. This imagery suggests a harmonious and elemental relationship between man and nature, which the artist felt was threatened by modern civilisation.
Gallery label, August 2013
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artworks in Vision and Visionary: Partou Zia
Patrick Heron, Green and Purple Painting with Blue Disc : May 1960 1960
In this work, an irregular blue disc hovers in front of a field of green and purple, seeming to expand and contract within the flat picture plane. Even when he eliminated recognisable subject matter, Heron’s abstractions stemmed from his observations of the visual world. He denied that he consciously painted ‘landscapes’, but affirmed: ‘the enormously powerful rhythmic energies of the granite outcrops beneath my feet transmit certain rhythms straight up through the soles of my shoes every minute of the day.’
Gallery label, May 2007
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artworks in Vision and Visionary: Partou Zia
Wolfgang Paalen, The Messenger 1941
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Winifred Nicholson, Recollect 1973
Wilkie owned four paintings by Winifred Nicholson, two of which were acquired by the Tate Gallery. These are 'The Hunter's Moon' which is shown nearby, and this painting. Both works demonstrate Wilkie's interest in collecting paintings on the theme of the seasons. 'The Hunter's Moon' evokes autumn which was seen by the artist as a time of adventure. 'Recollect', however, was painted in late spring 1973 and suggests a sense of looking back and remembering. This sentiment seems to have been shared by Wilkie. He remarked: 'The pictures of Winifred Nicholson represent for me the world of childhood and early adolescence. It is a world of order, security and cultivated civilisation'.
Gallery label, September 2004
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artworks in Vision and Visionary: Partou Zia
Ithell Colquhoun, Attributes of the Moon 1947
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Pamela Colman Smith, ‘Impromptu’ Sinding 1907
‘Impromptu’ Sinding is one of several drawings by Pamela Colman Smith that were inspired by classical music. Colman Smith initially sketched out their designs with automatic drawing while listening to the music before working up these free sketches into finished drawings. Executed in June 1907, it depicts three female figures in flowing robes and wearing S-shaped headdresses sitting on a cliff in a rocky landscape. A tower is visible on another cliff in the distance. The drawing is inscribed by Smith on the verso: ‘The Rulers of the World “And they sit in far off silent places, and thoughts grow up like towers out of the earth”’. It was inspired by the Norwegian composer Christian Sinding’s Impromptu for piano, op. 31/4 1896. The drawing is executed in watercolour and ink on paper, in muted tones but with small touches of a distinctive bright pink and orange pigments to highlight aspects of the figures. Also in Tate’s collection are Grieg ‘Spring Song’ 1907 (Tate T15362) and Mozart ‘Symphony “Prague”’ 1907 (Tate T15364).
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Obiora Udechukwu, The Moon Has Ascended Between Us 1976
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