David Gilbert – The Studio Collection of Art and Sculpture

On Friday 25th April, we are excited to announce that we will be holding a one day sale of the Artist, David Gilbert's artworks and sculptures. There will be sketches, watercolours, unframed and framed artworks along with the sculptures of wood and stone. An incredible opportunity of purchasing artworks which haven't been readily available on the open market.

'Hunter Gatherer II' by David Gilbert

David Hew Gilbert was born in Uxbridge in 1928. After National Service he studied English at Cambridge, where he began carving, initially in stone but quickly focusing on wood. He lived briefly in Cornwall, London and Sweden, before settling on the Isle of Arran in 1959 with his large family. From the late 1960s onwards, he undertook pioneering work as an educator and artist in the community, first at Formby Hall, (Liverpool Bull-Ring Project), the Cotswold Community and then on the Isle of Man. Moving to Lancaster, in the 1990s, he concentrated on drawings and woodcuts. His final move was to northwest Wales, on the Llyn peninsula, where he worked until the end of his life. Influenced by contemporary concerns, his guiding references continued to be Brancusi, Beckett and Wittgenstein.

'Another Story of How it is' by David Gilbert

The David Gilbert Art Trust was established in 2014 to care for and make Gilbert’s work available to the public, a duty it has continued since the artist’s death in 2016, when the collection was transferred to the Trust’s ownership. The Trust has facilitated non-selling exhibitions of Gilbert’s work at the Manx Museum and Art Gallery (2018) and the Museum and Sculpture Gallery in Bury (2022–3). It has also undertaken the cataloguing and promotion of the collection.

A study of Gilbert’s life and work is being written by Dr Judith LeGrove.

Gilbert’s work has been widely exhibited at Primavera, McRoberts & Tunnard Gallery, the Hayward Annual and House of William Blake in London; Royal Scottish Academy and Douglas & Foulis in Edinburgh; Arran Gallery; Manx Museum; Tolly Cobbold Eastern Arts National Exhibition; Peter Scott Gallery in Lancaster; and in Liverpool during the Year of Culture.

Gilbert’s drawings and sculpture have been acquired by prominent public collections in the UK, including the V&A, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Scottish Arts Council, Abbot Hall Gallery in Kendal, Manx Museum, and Derby and Bristol Museum Services, as well as by numerous private collectors. 

The writer Nicholas Mosley encapsulated Gilbert’s sculpture as being ‘about birth, love, death; about the unmanageability of human life but also about its miracles; about the efforts to confront pain in order to know what to do about it.’ 

'Cut Out Maquette' by David Gilbert

John Berger further reflected that Gilbert’s work ‘comes out of a loam which is absolutely genuine, nothing synthetic about it. And in that loam there are the smells and warmth of things immemorial.’

Only a small proportion of Gilbert’s work has ever been available for sale. After the mid-1960s, he grew to dislike the art world and the process of interacting with galleries, preferring to work on his own terms and as an artist in the community.

This studio sale therefore represents an unparalleled opportunity to discover the beauty, exquisite craftsmanship and above all the challenge that his work offers to those who encounter it.