Major show from a lifetime of work inspired by light and landscape

Feiler was one of the foremost figures of the Modern Art movement emanating from the South West of England, centred in St Ives.

His primary inspiration was the landscape and light of Cornwall.

Feiler forged friendships with many of the leading artists of his generation, including William Scott, Peter Lanyon and Roger Hilton. He was not a typical ‘St Ives’ painter and always followed his own path. As he commented: “I’m trying to make complex problems very simple, both in my way of thinking and in my painting. I’m trying to avoid profundities and I’m avoiding attributing importance to something that to me seems to be the essence of human existence. I’ve spent my life being anonymous and I’d like my painting to be important because of the anonymity.”

Paul Feiler: One Hundred Years will take place at the Jerwood from April 21 to July 8. This first major retrospective since the artist’s death in 2013 will bring some previously unseen works to public view and will include works that span his long career, from the figurative paintings of the 1940s to the Perspex square reliefs he made in his later years, which will be displayed across the ground floor of the gallery. Works have been borrowed from the Tate, the Arts Council Collection, Royal West of England Academy and the artist’s estate to create a truly inspiring and revealing exhibition of an artist who never stopped innovating.

Jerwood director Liz Gilmore said: “In this centenary year of Paul Feiler’s birth we are delighted to be showcasing the diversity of his work. The piece of his (Chrome & Lemon, 1956) in the Jerwood Collection is such a favourite of our visitors and this exhibition puts that work in the context of his wider oeuvre. As the last of his peer group working in St Ives, he represents a critical point in art history from a place where such talented creatives had found each other. Feiler took inspiration from landscape and coast, which was so evocative of his time and place and is so suitable for our coastal gallery in Hastings.”