Callum Innes, a pure land

Cal­lum Innes (b. 1962) is one of the most sig­nif­i­cant abstract painters of his gen­er­a­tion. He is also one of the few artists work­ing in abstrac­tion to include water­colour as a major part of his prac­tice, his explo­rations in this medi­um form­ing a par­al­lel body of work – in effect, a ​‘break’ from his oth­er paint­ing. a pure land doc­u­ments a series of 50 water­colours that Innes com­plet­ed in his Oslo stu­dio, dur­ing lock­down, in the spring of 2020. The book draws its title from the poem by Thomas A Clark, which Innes finds inspirational.

‘When lock­down occurred, I was set­ting up a new stu­dio, in Oslo. The con­text was unfa­mil­iar, and I had no ref­er­ence to ear­li­er work, as I do in Edin­burgh. I turned to water­colours again, always start­ing the day with a black and white one … these being the most elu­sive. We placed the work sequen­tial­ly in the book, so you can see how each informed the next, and so on.’
Cal­lum Innes


Poet: Thomas A Clark
Designer: Herman Lelie
Published: Circa Press, 1 March 2021
Hardcover, 22 × 26cm, 136pp
60 colour illustrations
ISBN 9-781-911422-15-0