John Wells was an artist and maker of relief constructions, associated with the St Ives group. His works of geometric abstraction were influenced by Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth.
Wells was born in London and trained as a doctor at University College Hospital. He learned to paint during regular evening classes at St Martin's School of Art. From 1936 to 1945, he worked as a General Practitioner in the Isles of Scilly. After the Second World War, Wells decided to pursue a full-time career as an artist, settling in Newlyn and becoming closely involved with the artistic community of St. Ives.
Wells was the co-founder of the Crypt Group and a founding member of the Penwith Society of Arts, where he worked with Barbara Hepworth from 1950 to 1951. Wells had regular exhibitions in London, the wider UK and abroad, with his work now represented in institutions such as the Tate Gallery and Yale Center for British Art.
Wells died on July 28, 2000, on the Penwith peninsula at the south-west tip of Cornwall. An exhibition at the Tate St Ives in 2007 celebrated the centenary of his birth.
