The artist

Jonathan Wickers (b. 1940, United Kingdom; d. 2018) was a British abstract painter whose work reflects a lifelong engagement with colour, gesture, and the physical properties of paint. He studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, London, during a period when British abstraction was increasingly responsive to international developments in gestural, process-based, and colour-led painting.

While Wickers’ artistic formation began in the context of post-war British modernism, his practice did not follow a conventional career trajectory. Following intermittent periods of production in earlier decades, including a small number of works from the late 1950s to 1990s, he withdrew from sustained public practice for extended periods. These interruptions were shaped in part by personal circumstances and long-term struggles with bipolar disorder, synaesthesia, and chronic migraines.

In the mid-2000s, Wickers returned fully to painting, initiating a sustained and prolific final period that continued until his death in 2018. This late body of work represents the core of his artistic achievement. Working intuitively and responsively, he developed paintings through layered gesture, chromatic interaction, and accumulative mark-making. Improvisation played a central role, balanced by a strong sense of compositional control.

Music, particularly jazz was a persistent influence, informing the rhythmic structure and visual tempo of the work. Material experimentation was integral to his practice; alongside traditional paint, Wickers incorporated abrasive and industrial materials such as tarmac and found paper, emphasising the surface as a site of physical action and record.

Landscape, especially the terrain and atmospheric conditions of North Cornwall, provided an enduring point of reference. Rather than depicting specific sites, Wickers abstracted geological and environmental forces into shifting planes of colour, texture, and movement. Across his late work, abstraction functioned as both a formal discipline and a means of psychological articulation, producing paintings that are emotionally resonant, materially assertive, and visually immersive.

Jonathan Wickers’ estate now manages his body of work, of which a carefully curated selection from over 400 catalogued paintings is presented here.