John Walker (b. 1939) is a leading modern British painter with a long association with the School of Art at Yale. The Center exhibited his raw and mordant series A Theater of Recollection, which takes as its point of departure the artist’s recalling of his father’s memoirs and stories of serving in the British Army at the Front during World War I. The exhibition was organized by the Boston University Art Gallery in association with Pamela Auchincloss Arts Management.
In conjunction with the exhibition the Center unveiled Anthony and Madeleine Carter’s remarkable gift of three paintings and fifteen drawings by John Walker. The art spanned Walker’s career from his dramatic debut in the 1960s to his deeply personal and highly wrought works of later years. This extremely generous gift gave the Center the finest, most comprehensive representation of the artist in any museum.
Venues
Boston University Art Gallery & Nielsen Gallery, Boston:
September 5–October 19, 1997
Knoedler Gallery, New York: January 15–February 7, 1998
Lee Scarfone Gallery, University of Tampa: August 20–September 27, 1998
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College:
October 16–December 13, 1998
Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum: April–June 1999
Yale Center for British Art: June 22–September 26, 1999
View works from the collection included in this exhibition here.
Top image
Visitors in the galleries, Yale Center for British Art, photo by © Elizabeth Felicella / ESTO
Extended reading
A Theater of Recollection: Paintings and Prints by John Walker
Introduction by Kim Sichel, a poem by Rosanna Warren, and an essay by John R. Stomberg