TREVOR BELL, 1930-2017 | Wild Overcast, 1962

In 1962 the Tate Gallery purchased 'Overcast' (painted in 1961) from the Waddington Galleries' February exhibition, with the benefit of the Knapping Fund.  Of that painting Trevor Bell wrote, ‘“Overcast” was the key painting for the period of work culminating in the last exhibition at Waddington's. As always I was concerned with making the painting a self-sufficient entity, not describing or necessarily alluding to anything else, but with it, as with many of the works of that period, I wanted to re-create a strangeness and power of imagery I find in the North. This was coupled with a need to make the work more positive, so that each piece of the painting was harmonically related to the whole - each form would be equally important - no longer a centre, or major forms supported, but a sort of presence or environment, completely inter-related but demanding decisions from the viewer as the point of departure".

As the artist's title suggests, 'Wild Overcast', painted in 1962, is a similar, perhaps 'wilder' composition but has a heightened use of colour, with its addition to the palette of a vivid ultramarine blue.