James (Jim) Bird

1937 - 2010

James Bird was born in Bloxwich, near Walsall, in 1937 and studied at Walsall School of Art, followed by Wolverhampton College of Art. His early work was influenced by the Neo-Romantic tendency in British art, and particularly the work of Graham Sutherland. In 1968, Bird left the design studio where he was working to emigrate to Spain and become a full-time artist, exhibiting at the prestigious Galeria Joan Prats in Barcelona. In 1980, he moved to New York, where he fell under the spell of Abstract Expressionism and befriended Robert Motherwell, as well as being associated with Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Christo and Sir Anthony Caro. Bird's later work, signed Jim Bird, is very much in an Abstract Expressionist style, with free, gestural application of paint. After Motherwell's death, Bird was the artist trustee of his charitable foundation. Bird's works frequently depict what he called “Landscapes of the Mind,” most often keyed to his memories and feelings about Spain, but all concerned with the space in which the human spirit creates to discover its freedom. The present work seems to fit this characterisation well.