Peter Lanyon: Cornwall Inside Out

Peter Lanyon: Cornwall Inside Out bought together a group of Lanyon’s Cornish paintings from major private and public collections. Highlights included pictures from the David Bowie collection, The Arts Council of England and the British Council, including Bojewyan Farms, among other important works.  The centenary exhibition was curated by art historian Toby Treves, a leading expert on Lanyon and coincided with the publication of his catalogue raisonné on the artist (Modern Art Press).

Lanyon’s Cornish landscape paintings form a central part of artist’s oeuvre and had not been the subject of an exhibition in London for many decades. Indeed some had never been exhibited in the United Kingdom. In these works Lanyon immersed himself emotionally and physically in his native landscape of Penwith, the westernmost part of Cornwall. With his desire to feel a stronger sense of place, he walked, rode, and drove over the windswept moors of Penwith. He skin-dived in the sea and went down the tin mines. And finally, he flew over it in his glider and discovered not only a new perspective on the land but a whole new realm of the physical world: the inside of the sky.