Brian Rice

VIEW WORKS

Overview

Born in Yeovil, Rice grew up in Tintinhull and Montacute. He attended Yeovil School of Art and became friends with fellow artist Derek Boshier. In the 1960s, Rice was at the heart of the London art scene, producing some of the era’s most groundbreaking paintings and prints.

In the mid-1970s, Rice left the pressures of London and retreated to his roots in the West Country, more or less giving up painting for a while. He bought a 50-acre sheep farm on the flanks of Eggardon Hill near Bridport and taught part-time at Brighton College of Art (now University of Brighton). Working the land he discovered Bronze Age archaeological remains and an 18th-century Donyatt pottery dish painted with the face of a Green Man, a symbol of rebirth. His finds inspired a new artistic direction, focused on the landscape and ancient traces of habitation, work that continued at his present home on the Dorset/Devon/Somerset borders. In more recent years his painting has revisited his early skill with colour and pure abstraction, resulting in works of great vibrancy.

In 1995 he held his first exhibition for 20 years. The solo show at The Meeting House in Ilminster was followed in 1998 by his ‘Art and Archaeology’ solo exhibition at Somerset County Museum in Taunton, where he displayed his works alongside his numerous finds from the New House restoration, including around 20,000 shards of pottery. Exhibitions in London, St Ives and Dorset ensued, including a highly successful retrospective of his 1960s work at the Redfern Gallery in Cork Street in 2014.

In 2013, Rice published a catalogue raisonné of his prints, the companion piece to the  paintings catalogue.

Exhibitions

2024
The Art Stable February 2024
‘Brian Rice: In The Beginning’ work from Yeovil School of Art and Goldsmiths College 1952-59

2023
Close Ltd January 2023
‘Red Black & White’ Screenprints

2021
Museum of Somerset November 2021
60 Years of Paintings & Prints

2020
RAMM Exeter 2020
60 Years of Paintings and Prints

2019
Belgrave St. Ives October 2019
Recent Paintings and Prints

2017
‘Brian Rice: Paintings & Prints from the Artist’s Archive’, Belgrave Gallery St. Ives, Cornwall.
March 6 – 27 2017

2016
 ‘Paintings from Six Decades’, Kelly Ross Fine Art, Art Stable, Child Okeford, Dorset
September 17th – October 22nd

2014
‘Brian Rice: 50 Years of Printmaking’, Belgrave St Ives

‘Brian Rice – Early Works 1959-1970’, Redfern Gallery, Cork Street, London W.1

2013
‘Brian Rice, Ursula Leach RE, Tony Martin’ Highgate Contemporary Arts, London

2012
‘Circles and Tangents’, Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, Salisbury, Wiltshire
Winter Exhibition, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives

2011

Winter Exhibition: Paintings and 3D Works by Fifty Contemporary Artists’, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives
Modern and Contemporary Prints, The Art Stable, Child Okeford, Dorset

2010

20th Century and Contemporary Prints, The Art Stable, Child Okeford, Dorset
Shirley Crowther Art, (Artizan Prints), Jointure Studio, Ditchling, Sussex
Post War Abstract, Belgrave Gallery, St. Ives, Cornwall
Salmagundi, Belgrave Gallery, St. Ives, Cornwall
Contemporary Art and Sculpture, The Gallery, Hilfield Manor, Hilfield, Dorset
2009

Large Paintings, Lighthouse, Poole, Dorset.
New Small Works (with Jacy Wall) Black Swan Arts, Frome, Somerset
Paintings 2000-2009, The Art Stable, Child Okeford, Dorset
Recent Small Works (with Jacy Wall) Town Mill Gallery, Lyme Regis, Dorset
2008
Recent Small Works (with Jacy Wall) Atrium Gallery, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, Dorset.
Paintings (with Jacy Wall), Chard Art, Chard, Somerset

2006
Constructions 1963-65 Westbrook Gallery, London 
In and Out of St Ives, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives
Recent Large Paintings, Bridport Art Centre, Bridport, Dorset
Recent Paintings, Chard Art, Chard, Somerset
The Last Picture Show, New Street Gallery, Plymouth
Arflex, Tokyo and Osaka, Japan

2005
British Abstract and Constructed Art from a Decade. J.H.W. Fine Art, London
Somerville Gallery, Plymouth, Devon. (T.Frost, A.Frost, B.Rice)
Christmas Exhition, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro, Cornwall

2004
Atrium Gallery, University of Bournemouth, Bournemouth, Dorset
At Home with Art, The Lionel Phillips Collection, The Atkinson Gallery, Somerset
Haunt, Sherborne House, Sherborne, Dorset
Royal West of England Academy, Open Print 2004, Clifton, Bristol
Casa Mia, Tokyo, Modern Life and Art.

2003
Retrospective Exhibition, Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, Devon
Atkinson Gallery, Millfield, Street, Somerset
Start a collection, Messum’s, Cork Street,
Bournemouth University, Art Loan Collection, Poole House, Bournemouth, Dorset

2002
Retrospective Exhibition, Bridport Art Centre, Bridport, Dorset
St Ives Artists, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, Devon
Royal West of England Academy, Autumn Exhibition, Clifton, Bristol
2001
Messum’s, Cork Street, London
The South West Academy, Open Exhibition, Exeter, Devon

2000
The National Print Exhibition, The Mall Galleries, London
Royal West of England Academy, Open Print Exhibition, Bristol.
The Royal Academy, Summer Exhibition, London
Royal West of England Academy, 148th Autumn Exhibition, Bristol

Work exhibited nationally and internationally since 1961