Wilfred Avery (1926–2016), Fountains Abbey (Late Afternoon), 1960. Courtesy of Jerwood Collection. Donated by the Executor of the Estate of Wilfred Avery
2026 marks the centenary of the birth of Wilfred Avery (1926–2016), a painter and collagist whose distinctive practice explored landscape, the male body and the subconscious.
Born in South Molton, Devon, Avery developed a lifelong connection with landscape. Largely self-taught, his early work was influenced by European modernism, while his later practice drew increasingly on Jungian psychology and his exploration of his own sexuality. Across a career spanning six decades, landscape and the male figure became the two central subjects of his work, gradually converging in increasingly abstract and psychological compositions.
Jerwood Collection holds Fountains Abbey (Late Afternoon), 1960, an oil painting from a period in which Avery was exploring the British landscape through a Cubist-influenced visual language and a deeply felt sense of place. The work was donated to Jerwood Collection by the Executor of the Estate of Wilfred Avery.
Fountains Abbey (Late Afternoon) was included in Wilfred Avery and the Unpredictable Image at the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon in 2023–24 and, most recently, in Echoes at Arnolfini, Bristol in 2025–26.
His centenary offers an opportunity to look again at Avery’s deeply individual contribution to post-war British art.
September 29, 2026
