William Black is a little known and underrated member of the St Ives artist group who, having worked as an architect after the Second World War, went on to work as an artist following the inheritance of money in the early 1950s. Inspired by the abstract avant-garde movement rapidly developing in West Cornwall, Black decided to move to St Ives to pursue his passion for art and to initiate his career as a sculptor and painter.
Black was a self taught artist, producing numerous deconstructivist sculptures in the 1960s.
In St Ives where he knew and worked alongside artists such as Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo, one can see the influence from these artists, particularly in his sculpture. There is a clear architectural element to the sculptures that he made. They illustrate an assemblage of fragmented shapes and forms of a deconstructivist nature.
William Black’s artwork is very much rooted in the time and the Cornish School. One can see elements from those such as Wilhelmina Barns Graham, George Hammond Steel and even Fred Wallis, all of whom would have been familiar to him. He was however closest to John Tunnard who, like himself, was slightly outside the main group of artists at that time. As a result his work has only recently become better known and acknowledged by the mainstream art world. His paintings tend to be either gouache or pen and ink with watercolour wash and are lovely decorative pieces that sit beautifully in any home.