Art Funded by you

1) Aquarium; 2) Untitled (Aquarium); 3) Acrobat; 4)15-1958

William Turnbull, 1949–1958

© Estate of William Turnbull. All rights reserved, DACS 2014

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art has acquired four works spanning ten years of Turnbull's career, each reflecting a key moment in the development of his style. The 1949 works Aquarium and Untitled (Aquarium), respectively a sculpture and a painting, were created during Turnbull's two-year stay in Paris between 1948 and the autumn of 1950. Created in the early months of Turnbull's involvement with the newly formed Institute of Contemporary Arts, Acrobat was Turnbull's largest work to date when it was completed in 1951, standing just over a metre tall. 15-1958 was the fifteenth and greatest painting Turnbull created in 1958, the first year after he embraced abstraction, and references Turnbull's contemporaries Rothko and Barnett Newman in its use of intense colour and expressive brushwork.

More information

Title of artwork, date

1) Aquarium; 2) Untitled (Aquarium); 3) Acrobat; 4)15-1958, 1949–1958

Date supported

2014

Medium and material

1) bronze; 2) oil on canvas; 3) bronze on stone base; 4) oil on canvas

Dimensions

1) 28 x 38 x 50.8 cm; 2) 71 x 91 cm; 3) 111.1 x 81.2 x 55.9 cm; 4)152.4 x 142.4 cm

Grant

47500

Total cost

197500

Content note: This object record is part of our archive and has not been updated since it was first published. It may contain inaccurate information or outdated language. Please get in touch if you think this record should be amended.

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