Overview

Alongiside our 2025 Summer Exhibition we are holding a second exhibition of works by Julian Trevelyan

 

Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988) Tides and Travels

 

Saturday 14th June to Saturday 12th July 2025

Monday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm

 

Open House Saturday

Saturday 14th June 2025, 10am to 6pm

 

The full catalogue with prices will be available from 26th May 2025

 

This selection of previously unseen paintings, collages, etchings and lithographs which come direct from the Estate of Julian Trevelyan illustrate the breadth of Trevelyan's vision, in which oils and prints hold equal weight. Having trained in Paris under Stanley Hayter at Atelier 17, working alongside artists including Alexander Calder, André Masson and Joan Miró, experimentation was central to Trevelyan's work. His palette is both bold and lyrical; his compositions marked by a sense of rhythm and visual wit. In the words of his wife, Mary Fedden, '... whichever medium he was involved in, his passionate concentration was total ... Julian invented such a marvellous graphic language, he pushed his personal vocabulary to the limits.'

 

The prints and oils span six decades, from the 1930s to the 1980s, and fall into two broadly thematic groups. Tides: inspired by Trevelyan's home and studio space in Durham Wharf, situated on the edge of the Thames in Chiswick, and his local stomping ground. Travels: inspired by Trevelyan's visits with Mary Fedden to destinations including France, Italy, Holland, America and India in the 1980s. Views are distilled into poetic patterns which tread a fine line between realism and abstraction; landscapes though familiar are never weighed down by too much detail.

 

Proceeds from the sales will raise funds for the redevelopment of Durham Wharf by Turner Prize Winning Architects, Assemble, and the establishment of a long-term artists' residency programme, the aim of which is to ensure that Durham Wharf continues to be a place where creativity, community and artistic excellence can thrive for years to come.

 

'Here [Durham Wharf], I put down my tap-root; my life was measured by its tides, and my dreams were peopled by its swans and seagulls. It has become the backcloth to all my various activities and has remained so ever since.'

Julian Trevelyan, Indigo Days, Macgibbon and Lee, London, 1957, p. 50 

 

Illustrated:

Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988)

St Davids, 1950

oil on canvas

50.8 x 76.2 cm

 

Press release

Alongiside our 2025 Summer Exhibition we are holding a second exhibition of works by Julian Trevelyan.

 

Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988) Tides and Travels

 

Saturday 14th June to Saturday 12th July 2025

Monday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm

 

Open House Saturday

Saturday 14th June 2025, 10am to 6pm

 

The full catalogue with prices will be available from 26th May 2025

 

This selection of previously unseen paintings, collages, etchings and lithographs which come direct from the Estate of Julian Trevelyan illustrate the breadth of Trevelyan's vision, in which oils and prints hold equal weight. Having trained in Paris under Stanley Hayter at Atelier 17, working alongside artists including Alexander Calder, André Masson and Joan Miró, experimentation was central to Trevelyan's work. His palette is both bold and lyrical; his compositions marked by a sense of rhythm and visual wit. In the words of his wife, Mary Fedden, '... whichever medium he was involved in, his passionate concentration was total ... Julian invented such a marvellous graphic language, he pushed his personal vocabulary to the limits.'

 

The prints and oils span six decades, from the 1930s to the 1980s, and fall into two broadly thematic groups. Tides: inspired by Trevelyan's home and studio space in Durham Wharf, situated on the edge of the Thames in Chiswick, and his local stomping ground. Travels: inspired by Trevelyan's visits with Mary Fedden to destinations including France, Italy, Holland, America and India in the 1980s. Views are distilled into poetic patterns which tread a fine line between realism and abstraction; landscapes though familiar are never weighed down by too much detail.

 

Proceeds from the sales will raise funds for the redevelopment of Durham Wharf by Turner Prize Winning Architects, Assemble, and the establishment of a long-term artists' residency programme, the aim of which is to ensure that Durham Wharf continues to be a place where creativity, community and artistic excellence can thrive for years to come.

 

'Here [Durham Wharf], I put down my tap-root; my life was measured by its tides, and my dreams were peopled by its swans and seagulls. It has become the backcloth to all my various activities and has remained so ever since.'

Julian Trevelyan, Indigo Days, Macgibbon and Lee, London, 1957, p. 50