Victor Willing
Visions
Hastings Contemporary will hold the first retrospective of work by British artist Victor Willing (1928-1988), representing each period of his career. The display will include work from all aspects of Willing’s artistic practice, including painting, drawing and sculpture. This gallery wide exhibition will be the first major display of Willing’s work in the UK in over a decade, featuring paintings from his days at the Slade, the development of his artistic vision while living in Portugal with his wife, the artist Paula Rego (b.1935), and his years working in London until his untimely death in 1988.
Writing about Willing’s work, Sir Nicholas Serota has stated: ‘In a bright generation Victor Willing burned brighter than most’ and his paintings ‘continue to demonstrate that this was no shooting star but rather a fiery comet which would eventually guide us all’.
Exhibited alongside work by a number of his contemporaries, including fellow Slade students Michael Andrews (1928-1995) and Paula Rego, and featuring significant loans from Tate, Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, and The Arts Council Collection, this exhibition will offer visitors a chance to encounter this ground-breaking but overlooked artist.
Main image: Victor Willing, Callot: Judge, 1983, oil on canvas © The Artist’s Estate
