Victor Willing (1928-1988): Revelations, Discoveries, Communications at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester brings together over twenty enigmatic paintings and drawings, including a selection of rarely seen early paintings.Willing, the late husband of artist Paula Rego, was once described by Sir Nicholas Serota as ‘a fiery comet which would eventually guide us all.’
Born in Egypt, Willing moved with his family to England in 1932 and studied at the Guildford School of Art (1948–9), and at the Slade School of Fine Art, London (1949–54). As a student, he met Francis Bacon, (who gave him a copy of Friederich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, which became one of Willing's favourite books) and admired the work of Picasso and Matisse.
In 1957 after embarking on an affair which led to the conception of the first of their three children, he moved to Portugal with artist Paula Rego, whom he eventually married in 1959. He worked in her father's business during this time and painted very little. He subsequently destroyed much of the work of that period.
He and his family returned to London in 1974, settling permanently there, and he began to paint again as a way of supporting himself. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, his paintings from the late 1970s were made after hallucinating their images, possibly a side-effect of the medications he was taking at the time.
Willing and Rego, like many of their generation were interested in Surrealism and the role of the subconscious in art. Both underwent Jungian analysis. As he later explained ‘All my life I’ve tried to recapture the intense pleasure in painting and drawing I had as a child, when I did battles with people going -Aaaaaarrgh!'
In many of Willing's paintings, a situation is presented as a scene to be played out by an absent protagonist. Primitive shelters and furniture, as settings suggestive of the isolation of the artist, are motifs that he explored in many works of this time.
He described the process of painting as 'a revelation, simultaneously discovery and communication.'
In the 1980s Willing was recognized as an important and established artist, but his health was worsening. He painted on a smaller scale at this time, with a series of women's heads being the last works that he completed prior to his death.
This is the first solo show in a public gallery of Willing's work since his retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1986.
For links to Willing's work held by the Tate Gallery click this link Willing, Victor
Admission:Full price £7.50, Child £2.30, Family £17, Students £4 Tuesdays 10am to 5pm half price, Thursday evenings 5 to 8pm
Location:
Pallant House Gallery, 9 North Pallant, Chichester, PO19 1TJ
Website:
http://www.pallant.org.uk/
