New exhibition by David Gilbert

Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:45

By David Murphy

Bury Art Museum is offering visitors a unique chance to see a body of work by sculptor/artist David Gilbert.

“Crossing Open Ground” opens on 5 November and showcases the work of an artist who rarely exhibited after the 1960s, being reluctant to engage with the commercial art world.

The exhibition features sculptures in wood, as well as some drawings, prints and woodcuts, many of which relate to the sculptures.

Over the last 20 years of his life he had exhibitions at Peter Scott Gallery at Lancaster University, the Manx Art Gallery and Museum, and in Liverpool during the Year of Culture. At these exhibitions his work was viewed by the then director of Tate Liverpool, and by the North West Arts Council Director Aileen McEvoy. They both commented that this was work that was very important in the history of British sculpture, and of his last work “what is the case?“, although consisting of more than 100 small sculptures, they are monumental in meaning.

Gilbert was born in Uxbridge 1928 and died in North Wales in 2016. After reading English at Cambridge he lived briefly in Cornwall, London and Sweden. He then lived with his family on Arran, in the Cotswolds, the Isle of Man, Lancaster and then towards the end of his life he moved to the northwest of Wales on the Llyn peninsula, working right up until the end of his life.

The exhibition runs until 18 February 2023. Bury Art Museum is open from 10am to 5pm (Tuesday to Friday) and from 10am to 4.30pm on Saturday.