Born in Leeds in 1930 Trevor Bell attended the local college of art. In his twenties he was working in West Cornwall, making his reputation as a leading member of the younger generation of St. Ives artists who established British art on the world stage. Following an acclaimed first one-man exhibition at the Waddington Galleries in London in 1958, Bell was awarded the Paris Biennale International Painting Prize and an Italian Government Scholarship. He later became a Gregory Fellow in painting at Leeds University. Following a travelling retrospective in Scotland, Ireland and England during 1970 and a major one-man show at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1973, Bell was took up the position of Professor for Master (Graduate) Painting at the Florida State University in Tallahassee. The Floridian light is reflected in his large-scale, intensely coloured paintings.
Important exhibitions were held at the Corcoran Gallery and the Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Museum in Miami, the Cummer Gallery in Jacksonville and the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was included in the London Tate Gallery’s St.Ives 1939 – 1964 exhibition, and more recently in the 1996-7 and 1998-9, exhibited large-scale paintings at the Tate Gallery, St Ives. He has been a regular exhibitor in private galleries in Miami, Atlanta and Chicago, and has had works purchased and commissioned by numerous international museum, public and private collections. Bell was twice a recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Council of Florida.
Bell has lived and worked in England, France, Italy and Canada, returning to live in Cornwall in 1996. In 1998 he was honoured with an Emeritus Professorship by Florida State University.
Public collections include
Tate, St. Ives
British Museum, London
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Arts Council of England
British Council
Boca Raton Musuem, Boca Raton
Literature
Trevor Bell, A British Painter In America, Ed., A Palladino-Craig published by Florida State University,
STEPHENS, Chris. Trevor Bell. Published by Sanson & Company.