Background and Education

1953                    Apprentice Stonemason

1954-57               Kingston School of Art

1963                     Moved to St Ives, Cornwall               

1964-66               Worked at the Leach Pottery and made first wooden sculptures

1966                     Worked with Breon O’Casey making jewellery

1968-1982          Partnership with Breon O’Casey

1978                     Set up forge and made first iron sculptures

1986                     Moved to London

Selected Exhibitions (*denotes solo exhibition)

1964/76               Penwith Gallery, St Ives

1965                     British Crafts Centre, London

1969/72               Marjory Parr, St Ives and London

1971                     Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol

1972/73               New Craftsmen, St Ives

1981                     O’Casey’s Craft Gallery, London

1981                     Oxford Gallery, Oxford

1982                     'The Maker's Eye', Crafts Council, London

                              Crafts Council Sideshow, ICA, London

1983                     British Crafts Centre, London – works in wood

                              Crafts Centre and Design Gallery, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds

                              Oxford Gallery, Oxford – Paintings, with ceramics by Alison Britton

1984                     ‘Bryan Illsley: Work in wood, metal and paint’, 

                              Crafts Council, London*

                              West Bretton Sculpture Park, Wakefield – works in iron

1986                     ‘Craft Matters’, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton University, 

                               a Southern Arts touring exhibition

1988                     ‘Souvenirs from St Ives’, Contemporary Applied Arts, London*

                              ‘Contemporary British Crafts’, Crafts Council exhibition touring 

                              National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and National Museum 

                              of Modern Art Kyoto, Japan

1989                     'Common Ground - Out of the Wood', Crafts Council, London

                              ‘Clay Bodies’, Contemporary Applied Arts, London

1990/91                Two works for Chiltern Sculpture Trail, Oxford Residency*

1990                     ‘Recent Works', Jamison Thomas Gallery, Portland, Oregon USA*

1992                     ‘Sculptures & Paintings’, Cirencester Workshop Gallery*

1993                     Sculpture Aspen, residency, Aspen Art Museum, Colorado USA

1993-95               The Raw and The Cooked’, group exhibition of contemporary 

                               ceramics, Museum of Modern Art Oxford, followed by a tour

1995                     ‘Pandora’s Box’, group ceramic exhibition, Crafts Council, London

1998                      Inaugural exhibition, Barrett Marsden Gallery, London

1999                      Joint show, Illsely Paintings and Robert Marsden Metalwork, 

                               Barrett Marsden Gallery, London

                               Todd Gallery, London - paintings

2004                      Group exhibition, Barrett Marsden Gallery, 

                                London – Illsley Ceramics

2008                      ‘Bryan Illsley: New Prints and Recent Paintings’, 

                                Cross Street Gallery, London*

                                ‘The work of Bryan Illsley’, selected by Stella Benjamin, The Anthony                                 Shaw Collection, London

2009                      ‘Selected Works’, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea*

2010                      ‘Partings and Pipelines’ Marsden Woo Gallery, London*

2011                      Lemon Street Gallery, Truro

Public Collections

Contemporary Art Society, London

Kettles Yard, Cambridge

Plymouth City Art Gallery

Camden, Cornwall, Devon and Reading Education Committees

Arts Council of Great Britain

Portsmouth City Museum

Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto

Crafts Council of Great Britain

Victoria and Albert Museum

Smart Museum, University of Chicago

 

Selected bibliography

Christopher Reid, Crafts Council, 1984

Edward Lucie-Smith, 'Sculpture Since 1945', Phaidon, 1987

Alison Britton, 'Souvenirs from St Ives', Contemporary Applied Arts, 1988

Lord Gowrie, 'Bryan Illsley', Barrett Marsden Gallery, 1999

‘Partings and Pipelines’, Marsden Woo Gallery, 2010