Jean Gibson

Jean Gibson (1927 – 1991) was a British artist known for her abstract sculptures, often in resin, canvas, fibreglass or perspex. She taught at Wimbledon School of Art and at her studio.

Biography Gibson was born in 1927, in Stoke on Trent and studied at the Wimbledon School of Art in London and then at the Royal College of Art, RCA, between 1954 and 1957. At the RCA Gibson met her future husband, the artist Anthony Whishaw. Gibson won a travelling scholarship to Italy, took part in group exhibitions with the London Group and had her first solo exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in 1965 and a second one at the same venue in 1969. From 1978 until her death in 1991, aged 63 or 64, works by Gibson regularly featured in the annual Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

What distinguishes Jean Gibson’s work, and deepens the paradox of the austere form and the explosive emotional content, is that her work is far more substantial and physically demanding than merely putting brush to canvas. She creates her sculptures from dense and hard materials, wrestling them into submission, pressing them out, waiting for them to set… to people who pursued other occupations and came to art later in life. They included social workers, psychotherapists, medical doctors and the fashion designer, Nicole Farhi.

Legacy A joint exhibition of works by Whishaw and Gibson was held in 2018 at the Canwood Gallery and Sculpture Park.