Stephen Gilbert

Stephen Gilbert (1910–2007) was a British painter and sculptor whose career connected several of the most important strands of post-war European abstraction. A member of the CoBrA group and later associated with Constructivism, he moved from imaginative, biomorphic painting towards increasingly geometric abstraction and three-dimensional construction.

Born in Fife, Scotland, Gilbert was the grandson of the sculptor Sir Alfred Gilbert. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1929 to 1932 and exhibited regularly in London during the 1930s. In 1937 he moved to Paris, but the outbreak of the Second World War led him to settle temporarily in Ireland, where he exhibited with the White Stag Group.

Gilbert returned to Paris in 1946 and became closely involved with the European avant-garde. In 1948 his work at the Salon des Surindépendants attracted the attention of Asger Jorn, who invited him to join CoBrA, the experimental group founded that year by artists from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Along with William Gear, Gilbert was one of the few British artists closely associated with the movement.

His CoBrA paintings combined freely invented creatures, organic forms and strong colour with an emphasis on spontaneity and imagination. Gilbert participated actively in the group’s activities, including the celebrated 1949 gathering at Bregnerød near Copenhagen, where the artists collectively decorated a house with murals. His work also appeared in CoBrA publications and exhibitions.

By the early 1950s Gilbert was moving away from the expressive imagery of CoBrA towards a more ordered abstraction. Working closely with Constant Nieuwenhuys, he became increasingly interested in Mondrian, Malevich and De Stijl, reducing his compositions to geometric planes, restricted colour and clearly defined structure.

This development soon carried him beyond painting. From 1953–54 Gilbert began making precisely constructed three-dimensional works in painted aluminium, seeking to bring colour and form into real space. His approach brought him into contact with the British Constructivist circle around Victor Pasmore, Anthony Hill, Kenneth Martin and Mary Martin, with whom he exhibited in London.

Gilbert continued to develop sculptural and architectural constructions throughout the following decades, while remaining based largely in France. During the 1980s he returned increasingly to painting, revisiting abstraction with a freer and more painterly approach.

His work is held in major public collections including the National Galleries of Scotland and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.