15 Facts About Peter Lanyon

George Peter Lanyon was a British painter of landscapes leaning heavily towards abstraction.

Peter Lanyon took up gliding as a pastime and used the resulting experience extensively in his paintings.

Peter Lanyon died in Taunton, Somerset, as the result of injuries received in a gliding accident and is buried in St Uny's Church, Lelant.

In 2015 Peter Lanyon's Gliding Paintings were shown as a set in the Soaring Flight exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, London.

Peter Lanyon was born in St Ives, Cornwall, in 1918.

Peter Lanyon was the only son of W H Lanyon, an amateur photographer and musician.

Peter Lanyon travelled around Italy, with his wife Sheila Lanyon, in the summer of 1950 and became a leading figure in the St Ives group of artists.

Peter Lanyon had his first solo exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery, London in 1949 and taught at the Bath Academy of Art, Corsham from 1951 to 1957.

Peter Lanyon spent four months in 1953 living in Italy on an Italian government scholarship.

Peter Lanyon ran an art school, St Peter's Loft, at St Ives from 1957 to 1960 with Terry Frost and William Redgrave and in 1959 he was awarded second prize at the 2nd John Moores Exhibition, Liverpool.

Peter Lanyon was well received in New York and the increased demand for his work in the US combined with an expansion of work to the much larger scale of mural painting and in response to a new interest in gliding led to a looser and more open kind of painting.

Peter Lanyon began training as a glider pilot in 1959, as he explained: "to get a more complete knowledge of the landscape".

Peter Lanyon used his gliding experiences as the basis for paintings that gave an aerial perspective to his native Cornish landscape right through to his death in a gliding accident in 1964.

Peter Lanyon travelled to Prague and Bratislava in 1964 to lecture for the British Council.

Peter Lanyon died on 31 August 1964 at Taunton, Somerset, after a gliding accident.