Artists Index: William Gear

William Gear, (1915-1997) born into a miner’s household in Methil, Scotland, William Gear attended Edinburgh College of Art (1932–1936)
and Edinburgh University (1936–1937) going on to study
at Acadamie Colarossi, Paris under Fernand Leger. After demobilization in 1947 he returned to Paris where he became part of the Cobra group taking part in their exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 1949. He exhibited in America with Jackson Pollock in the same year before returning to London in 1950 and winning a Festival of Britain Purchase Prize the following year. In 1952 his work was exhibited in Japan, New York, Sao Paulo and at the Venice Biennale in 1954. Gear became Curator of the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne in 1964 and, in the same year, Head
of the Faculty of Fine Art at Birmingham School of Art (now Birmingham City University) until 1975, when he was awarded the Lorne Fellowship. He was elected a Senior RA in 1995.