No painting should reveal all it has to say as a kind of instant impact. Abstract painting... should be as diverse, and complex, and strange, and unaccountable, and unnameable as an experience, as any painting of any consequence has been in the past.  Robyn Denny, ISIS art journal interview, 1964

 

Credo

 

Robyn Denny is by any measure one of the most significant and substantial artists of the post-war era, well represented in both national and international public collections though less familiar (partly due to his retreat from the public eye in the 1980s) than contemporaries such as Howard Hodgkin and Patrick Caulfield. His austere, demanding yet tonally sumptuous hard-edged paintings from the mid-1960s are among the most immediately recognisable images in the history of abstract painting, with an enigmatic presence that resists glib rationalisation - "rooted in something", as Robert Kudielka wrote in the catalogue to the 1973 Tate exhibition, "that descriptive jargon passes over in silence" - and a mastery of sombre colour that has seldom been surpassed. His still largely unseen post-1980s work, on the other hand, has a depth and veiled radiance to which only late Rothko is comparable.

 

Mission

 

To secure Robyn Denny's legacy in art history as not only a lead protagonist of the seismic shift in the direction of British art in the 1950s, but one of the most original, uncompromising and enduringly important abstract painters of the twentieth century.

 

To maintain awareness, build profile and foster an ongoing appreciation of the entire body of Robyn Denny’s work.

 

To introduce Robyn Denny’s work to new audiences across the globe, through a sustained narrative and communications plan.

 

To increase the value of Robyn Denny’s work through exhibitions and strategic partnerships with - amongst others - public collections/institutions, art dealers and private collectors. 

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To facilitate access to Robyn Denny's extensive archive for academic and research purposes. The archive was gifted to Tate Britain in 2022 and may be accessed directly by prior arrangement.