150th Archive Exhibition

With our Gillian Ayres’ artwork currently on loan, a temporary 150th anniversary archive exhibition takes its place.

Visitors to South Hampstead Senior School are usually greeted by a riot of colour: Gillian Ayres’ Hampstead Murals – significant early works by one of Britain’s leading abstract painters. In 1957, the architect Michael Greenwood commissioned the young artist to decorate the school’s dining hall. The vibrant murals subsequently appeared in a Vogue fashion shoot in 1958 but then were then largely hidden before being rediscovered in the 1980s as Ayres’ reputation grew. When the new Maresfield Gardens site re-opened in 2014, the murals took pride of place. When Ayres died in 2018, her obituary in the Guardian cited the murals as: “The only true British contribution to American abstract expressionism.”

From July to October this year, the Hampstead Murals went on loan to The Box gallery in Plymouth. Currently in their place is an archive exhibition curated by former Head Girl Sophie Burton, Class of 2020. Sophie returned over the summer to install a collection of artefacts tracing the school’s 150-year history; the walls are now adorned with black and white photos, school magazines, newspaper clippings and school uniform from the archives against the backdrop of a fascinating school timeline since 1876. As well as producing the exhibition, Sophie also wrote about the impact of Gillian Ayres’ artwork on the school community for the latest edition of Resplendens magazine – read more on page 46.