Michael Canney

Michael Canney (1923–1999) was a Cornish painter, relief-maker, writer, broadcaster and teacher whose work evolved from landscape painting through abstraction to a highly ordered form of geometric and constructivist art. His career was closely connected to the artistic communities of St Ives and Newlyn, while his later work reflected an increasing interest in systems, proportion and mathematical structure.

Born in Falmouth, Canney grew up near Redruth and was introduced to art at an early age. He studied at Redruth and Penzance Schools of Art and at Leonard Fuller’s St Ives School of Painting. As a young man he encountered many of the artists who were transforming modern art in Cornwall, including Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Naum Gabo and Bernard Leach, and saw Alfred Wallis painting in St Ives. During wartime service in Italy he also met Giorgio de Chirico.

After the war Canney studied at Goldsmiths’ College in London from 1947 to 1951, where his contemporaries included Bridget Riley and Albert Irvin. His work became increasingly abstract during the 1950s, and he began producing reliefs as well as paintings. At this time he was closely connected with artists including Peter Lanyon, William Scott, Roger Hilton, Terry Frost and Paul Feiler.

In 1956 Canney returned to Cornwall to become curator of Newlyn Art Gallery. He played an active role in the cultural life of the region, organising exhibitions and broadcasting on art for radio and television. During his time at Newlyn he helped organise Mark Rothko’s visit to Cornwall in 1959 and also worked briefly with Barbara Hepworth.

During the 1960s Canney’s work moved increasingly towards hard-edged geometric abstraction and Constructivism. After teaching in California in the mid-1960s, he joined the staff of the West of England College of Art in Bristol, at the invitation of Paul Feiler, remaining there until 1983. His paintings and reliefs from this period are characterised by carefully balanced geometric forms and an increasingly systematic approach to composition.

In 1984 Canney moved to Italy, where the colour in his paintings became noticeably richer, and later lived in France before returning to Britain. From the early 1980s he made extensive use of alkyd paint, whose quick-drying properties allowed him to build sharply defined areas of colour without bleeding between forms. He continued to make paintings, constructions and reliefs until ill health brought his working career to an end in the late 1990s.

Canney exhibited widely during his lifetime, with later solo exhibitions at Newlyn Art Gallery, Prescote Art and Design and the Belgrave Gallery. A posthumous exhibition, Michael Canney 1923–1999: Oils, Alkyds and Reliefs, was held at the Fine Art Society in London in 2007. His work is held in public collections including Plymouth City Art Gallery, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum and the Mondriaanhuis, Amersfoort.

The Redfern Gallery has continued to exhibit and handle Canney’s work, including examples from both his early reliefs and later geometric paintings. His Relief of 1957 and later works have appeared in Redfern exhibitions devoted to Modern British art.