S otheby’s is excited to announce a solo exhibition of paintings by Winston Branch: Journey into Light. Ambitious and experimental, the works in this exhibition are the labour of a 25-year inquiry into the potentiality of light, colour, space and depth. Born in St. Lucia in 1947, Winston Branch came to London as a teenager to study at The Slade School of Fine Art alongside contemporaries David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, John Hoyland and Patrick Procktor. He would go on to teach at The Slade School of Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts and University of California (Berkeley, CA) as professor of Art. In 2018 the Tate acquired his seminal abstract work from 1982 Zahary II. The art critic Carlos Diaz Sosa described his work as "abstract canvases in cool, cloudy colours that have a quality which allow the viewer to explore the depths of the mind. Branch uses paint like a symbol, a purely aesthetic language, an illustration of spirit."
Winston Branch’s journey with abstraction begun in 1982, the same year in which the British Black Arts Movement was founded to examine issues of racism, sexism and the legacies of colonialism. This exhibition brings together the results of the painter’s investigation into the possibilities of abstraction.
Works by Winston Branch are represented in the permanent collections of Tate Britain, The Victoria and Albert Museum, The British Museum, The Arts Council of Great Britain, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, The Museum of Modern Art in São Paolo, The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The Legion of Honour de Young Museum in San Francisco, CA, The St Louis Museum of Art in Missouri, The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA, The Hamburger Kunsthalle Museum in Hamburg, The University of California at Berkeley, The Berkeley Art Museum and The Contemporary Art Society, UK.
Winston Branch: Journey into Light
Join artist Winston Branch and Sotheby’s Andre Zlatinger exploring Branch’s life and work from Saint Lucia to London and the richly expressive works that chart his journey, coinciding with the selling exhibition of six important works from the 1980s to the 2000s.
Sunday 19 November 2023, 1:00 PM–1:30 PM
34-35 New Bond Street
London, W1S 2RT
Standing talk, no RSVP required.
Works Available for Purchase Online
17 November–15 December
Exhibition On View in London
17–21 November
Weekdays: 9:00 AM–4:30 PM
Weekends: 12:00 PM–5:00 PM
Contact:
André Zlattinger
Deputy Chairman UK, Head of Department
Senior Director, Modern British & Irish Art
andre.zlattinger@sothebys.com
