Willy Tirr 1915-1991
Flight III
watercolour on paper
75.8 x 55.7
2012-1993-64
@Willy Tirr estate
Photo: Bridgeman images
Self-taught painter Willy Tirr’s abstract meditations on flight draw on both the American Abstract Expressionist movement and his admiration for J.M.W. Turner's watercolours and the work of the St Ives...
Self-taught painter Willy Tirr’s abstract meditations on flight draw on both the American Abstract Expressionist movement and his admiration for J.M.W. Turner's watercolours and the work of the St Ives painters. Between the 1960s and 1980s he developed an interest in capturing the movement and fluidity of flight, drawing on his traumatic experience as a refugee, admitting that for him there was 'an obsessive significance in the double meaning of the term'. The 'Northern Echo' reviewer described Tirr's abstract watercolours in 1957 as 'Staining his paper with the savoir-faire of a tachiste', saying 'many new and wonderful things ... (some) suggest an almost oriental feeling for atmospheric effect'. A later reviewer admired the exhilaration they suggested, likening Tirr's manipulation of his materials to that of a musician, achieving 'a play of tone that suggests mood'.
Provenance
presented by Mrs Erika Tirr, the artist's widow 1993Literature
Sarah MacDougall ed., 'Interstices - Discovering the Ben Uri Collection Guest curated by René Gimpel' (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2020), pp. 36-37.; 'Finchleystrasse: German artists in exile in Great Britain and beyond 1933-45' (London: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum in association with the German Embassy London, 2018), p. 45.; Walter Schwabe and Julia Weiner, eds., Jewish Artists: the Ben Uri Collection - Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture (London: Ben Uri Art Society in association with Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 1994), p. 152.Be the first to know – Sign Up
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