Berenice Sydney

Berenice Sydney was included in ten group exhibitions between 1963 and 1975 and held eleven solo shows, in addition to being invited to represent Britain at the Biennale della Grafica d'Arte in Florence in 1974. The following year she showed her "stained-glass effect" canvases at the McAlpine Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum. Her first professional exhibition was held at the Drian Galleries in 1968 and included Susanna and the Elders with Charlie the Pigeon, Coffee Pot and 3 Yellow Flowers and The Drummer Boy. She began to exhibit her works on paper including Dancing Nymphs, Hermaphroditus, Pan and Two Nymphs, The Marriage of Psyche and Eros, Naiads Surprised by Satyrs, in 1968. Linocuts were also exhibited that year and included Aphrodite and Ares, Nymphs Dancing, Psyche and Eros, Nude Fiddling with Toe, Pan and Two Nymphs and Hebe and Artemis. She continued to explore themes relating to Persian mythology, Christian symbolism and Greek mythological subjects as well as referencing Ancient Egyptian art, creating a hieroglyph of her professional name and working on papyrus.

Responding to the exhibition Salute to Berenice Sydney held at the Royal Academy Max Wykes-Joyce wrote: In the Spring of 1968 I was much charmed by a first one-person show at the Drian Galleries of large, lively paintings which evidenced the artist's interest in dance and music, and a group of black and white drawings on mythological themesm [sic?] made in her late teens and very early twenties by the young self-taught Berenice Sydney. I praised them greatly: subesequently [sic?] show of her work were in turn singled out for admiration in Arts Review by Marina Vaizey, Pat Gilmour, Oswell Baakeston and Charles Bone. And these praises were more recently joined by those of Kenneth Garlick of the Ashmolean Museum and David Brown of the Tate Gallery. Her painting evolved from figuration to an apparent abstraction which was, in truth, a dance of colours, an expression of natural exuberance. She was continually researching new means of printmaking and mixed media works, each kind of which is represented in this, her memorial exhibition.

Sydney's work developed from representational to semi-abstract, and she soon established her style in purest abstract form starting with tiny delicate Persian Garden designs, miniatures in naturalistic colours that become abstract etchings: Bakhtiari, The Sultan's Garden, Shirvan Kabistan II, Hachly Moons, Little Squares, Saruk, which were exhibited in 1969. From 1973 her oils on canvas also began to develop into conceptual abstractions. From discernible figures worked in flowing brush strokes her forms became multi-faceted describing movement in hundreds of colour mutations and shapes. Sydney's later paintings were developed in series, based on specific organic forms, such as leaves (see illustration), that provided a dynamic structural frame for the buildup of paint across large canvasses. Colour combined with vortex-like compositions, starting from a central point to expand outwards, enabled the artist to explore the kinesthetic qualities of visual experience in a way that relates to Bridget Riley's later work.

Sydney continued to experiment in oils and other media and produced etching, engravings in steel (Art in Steel exhibition 1972), copper and perspex monoprints. One of her influences was Stanley William Hayter and her etchings would then use multiple colours on a single plate. She also produced aquatints and lithographs using one plate for each colour process. Her work in serigraphy was also extensive and first exhibited in 1974.

Sydney's drawing consistently used acrylic and oil pastels, ink and brush creating a series of works on Gemini paper. She produced a series of intensely detailed pen drawings merging the calligraphic with the figurative in a humorous way, as in Pen drawing with Jester, 1976.

Sydney wrote and illustrated a Book of Nonsense Verse 1982/3 later titled Book of Fools which she dedicated to the First of April. A page from this work featuring the poem The Ant who Danced and Pranced is featured in the catalogue to the exhibition Homage to Berenice Sydney. In it the art historian, Florian Rodari's appraisal of Sydney's work appears in French with a translation in English by Charlotte Frieze. The black and white illustrations to the Book of Fools are aquatints etched in a delicately delineated style. The text is written in French and English. Four artist's proofs of the book subsequently titled Book of Fools were printed. The French version of A Book of Fools was purchased by the Bibliothèque Nationale Paris in October 1982 in addition to a number of the artist's earliest etchings, now kept in the Cabinet des Estampes. An audio cassette recording of the artist giving a reading of the Book of Fools was made at the Musée d'Elysée in Lausanne as the artist performed with castanets, accompanied by Gypsy Flamenco musicians and rendered in parts with a Yorkshire accent in homage to her father's family origins.

Exhibitions during her lifetime 1968–1982 1968

Drian Galleries, First One Person Show, London Leicester Galleries, - Group Show, London Edinburgh Festival Costume Designs for Workshops Production of Clown - Televised, Grampian Productions Magdelene Street Gallery. Group Show, Cambridge 1969 Traverse Theatre Gallery, Group Show, Edinburgh Lumley Cazalet Gallery, Group Show, London Camden Arts Centre Group Show, London Tib Lane Gallery, Group Show, Manchester Royal Institute Galleries, Group Show F.I.B.A., London WI 1971

International Student House, One Person Show, London Leicester Galleries. Group Show, London WI Richard Demarco Gallery, Group Show, Edinburgh Tib Lane Gallery, Group Show, Manchester 1972

Galleria Stellaria One Person Show, Florence Zella 9 Gallery, Group Show, London Art in Steel Exhibition, Group Show, Millbank, London F.B.A. Galleries, Group Show, London SWI Magdelene Gallery, Group Show, Cambridge 1973

Christopher Drake Gallery, Group Show, London Kenwood House Museum, Two Person Show, London, mounted by the Greater London Council Bear Lane Gallery, One Person Show, Oxford Van Dyke Gallery. One Person Show, Bristol University Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Group Show, Paris Artists from Five Continents" Group Show, Swiss Cottage Central Library 1974

Education Gallery, One Person Show, Leeds City Art Gallery Willis Museum and Art Gallery. One Person Show, Basingstoke Biennale della Grafica d'Arte, Florence, Italy representing Great Britain Haworth Art Gallery, Accrington, One Person Show 1975

McAlpine Gallery, One Person Show, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford County Museum, One Person Show, Warwick Museum and Art Gallery. Three Person Show, Leicester Galleria d'Arte, One Person Show, Milan St Catherine's College, Oxford One Person Show, Oxford Trinity College, Oxford. One Person Show Leicester Museum & Art Gallery. Prints 1976

Biennale Européan de la gravure, Group Show, Mulhouse Galeria Peters, Group Show, Buenos Aires Gallery of Modern Art, Two Person Show, Buenos Aires Cardiff University, One Person Show, Cardiff Leeds Art Gallery, Series of 6 lectures and demonstrations of etching techniques 1982

The Society of Graphic Artists Hampstead Artists Council Free Painters and Sculptors Chelsea Art Society Posthumous exhibitions 1984 onward 1984

Salute to Berenice Royal Academy. One Person Show, London Exhibition of British Art, Abu Dhabi Group Show Exhibition of British Art, Gulf of Bahrain, Group Show British Council Paris, Group Show Centenary Exhibition, Leicestershire Museum and Art Gallery, Group Show 1985

Homage à Berenice Sydney, Edwin Engelberts Galerie d'Art Contemporain, One Person Show, Geneva 1986

Christmas Exhibition' Lumley Cazalet Fine Art, Group Show, London 1987

Berenice Sydney, Gallery of British Contemporary Art, One Person Show, Lausanne 1988

Berenice Sydney, La Galerie Michel Foex, Geneva, Watercolour painting, One Person Show 1989

Women in Art, Bowmoore Gallery, Group Show, London 1990

Contemporary British Artists, Waterman Fine Art, Group Show, London 1991

The London Original Print Fair, Royal Academy of Art, London Represented by Lumley Cazalet

From Fautrier to Rainer, La Galerie Michel Foex, Group Show, Geneva, including Henri Michaux, Brice Marden, Ben Nicholson, Jean Fautrier 1992

Homage to the British Artist Berenice Sydney, Galerie Nelly L'Epattenier, One Person Show, Lausanne 1993

Homage à Berenice, L'Exemplaire, Geneva, One Person Show The London Original Print Fair, The Roya

The British Museum, London The Victoria and Albert Museum, London The Tate Gallery, London The British Council, London The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford The Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam The Royal Library of Belgium Brussels The Uffizi Gallery, Florence Galleria M. Arte Moderna, Bologna The Phillips Collection, Washington The National Library of Congress, Washington The Smithsonian Institution, Washington Philadelphia Museum of Art Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Menil Collection, Houston, Texas Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, USA Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York Capital Nacional de la Nautica, Buenos Aires Graphische Sammlung der ETH, Zürich, Switzerland New York Public Library New York, USA Jenisch Collection, Musée Cantonale, Vevey, Switzerland Victoria Art Gallery, Bath City Art Gallery, Bradford Museum and Art Gallery, Bolton Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and Bedford Museum County Museum, Derby Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne City Art Gallerv, Glasgow Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne Leicester City Gallery Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool City Museum & Art Gallery, Newport Reading College & School of Arts and Design now Thames Valley University Luton Museum & Art Gallery, Luton South London Gallery Museum of Reading Newnham City Collection City Art Gallery, Wakefield Humberside Education Services Humberside Leisure Services Batley Library Rochdale Libraries Art Services Museum & Art Gallery, Rochdale Durham County Council Norwich Castle Museum Nonsuch High School Cecil Higgins Gallery, Bedford Museum and Art Gallery, Oldham Usher Gallery, Lincoln Portsmouth City Art Gallery

University of Sussex University of Manchester Cardiff University University of Bristol University of Bath University of Glasgow University of Cardiff University of Lancaster University of Sheffield University of Salford Bristol Education Authority Leeds Education Department Reading Education Department Derbyshire County Council Inner London Education Department (ILEA) Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust St Thomas' Hospital, London St Mary's Hospital, London Bingley & Havering County Council London Borough of Bromley Education Office, Preston Lancashire County Council Nottingham Education Committee

James Walter Thompson London First National Bank of Boston Chase Manhattan Bank Stellaria Galleria, Florence Pallas Gallery Lumley Cazalet Gallery Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford Drian Galleries, London Butler Miller Wilkin Warburton World Graphics Hilton Hotels

John Jacobs, Curator of Historic Museums and Director of the Iveagh Bequest Kenwood House London Galeria Peters, Buenos Aires, Argentina Private Collections, San Francisco, California, USA Private Collection, Washington D.C., USA Private Collection, Los Angeles, California, USA Private Collection, New York City, USA Private Collection, Geneva, Switzerland Patrick Cramer, Geneva, Switzerland Michel Foex, Geneva, Switzerland Darius Dabatabay, Geneva, Switzerland Lady Noel Annesly, England Christopher Johnston Collection, England Mr. and Mrs. Hariton Embiricos, Greece Sueo Mitsuma, Tokyo Lord Alistair McAlpine, England Linda Talbot, England 4 Private Collections, Sydney, Australia