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The Growth of New Ideas – The Legacy of D’Arcy Thompson in Modern and Contemporary Art


  • Pier Arts Centre 28 - 36 Victoria St Stromness, Orkney Islands KW16 3AA United Kingdom (map)

Mark Wright Division 2000 © the artist
courtesy of University of Dundee Museums

Many of the Pier Arts Centre’s collection artists were deeply interested in the parallels between geometric patterns in art and nature and were inspired by the work of Scottish biologist and polymath D’Arcy Thompson (1860-1948).

This exhibition, in collaboration with the University of Dundee Museums, will allow us to explore the pioneering work of Thompson, and how it impacted on Modernist artists and contemporary artistic thinking. Spotlighting artists, including Naum Gabo (1890-1977), Henry Moore (1898-1986), Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) and Will Maclean (b. 1941), will show the ways that Thompson’s principles shaped new artistic ideas and the abstract imagination.