The Pier Arts Centre Collection
10 July – 12 September 2004
While the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness develops its galleries and premises, this exhibition offered a rare, southerly glimpse of a selection from one of the truly remarkable collections of St Ives art.
It also provided the opportunity to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Centre and the 100th birthday of the collection’s creator, Margaret Gardiner.
Like Jim Ede, nine years her senior, Margaret Gardiner was part of Hampstead in the ’30s and became a close friend and supporter of Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo. Apart from a cottage in the Orkneys, Hampstead has remained her home to this day. But, with the move of the Hepworth-Nicholson family to Cornwall, her artistic circle and collecting widened to encompass the paintings of Alfred Wallis and work by other artists including Peter Lanyon, William Scott, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Roger Hilton, John Wells and Margaret Mellis – all were represented in this exhibition.
