Wilhelmina Barns-Graham attended the Edinburgh College of Art (1931–1939). In 1940 she moved to St Ives, where she rented no. 3 Porthmeor Studios until 1946 and joined the NSA and the STISA – leaving the latter in 1949 to become a founding member of the Penwith Society of Arts.

After the war, she travelled regularly in Europe and taught at Leeds School of Art in the mid-1950s. In 1952, she held her first solo exhibition at the Redfern Gallery.

Although she spoke of feeling sidelined by the increasingly discordant community in St Ives, Barns-Graham was considered a pioneer of post-war British abstraction and exhibited numerously, at the RA, WIAC, Tom Caldwell Gallery, Marjorie Parr Gallery and the RSA. In 1985, she was given a retrospective exhibition at Tate St Ives and was appointed CBE in 2001.

^{Biography from Liss Llewellyn}

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham [also known as W. Barns-Graham, and as Barns-Graham] was born at 11 Abbotsford Crescent, St Andrews, Fife, on 8 June 1912. She studied intermittently at Edinburgh College of Art from 1931 to 1939 and was from 1935 to 1939 was awarded an annual scholarship. In March 1940 she moved to Cornwall and settled in St. Ives where she acquired a studio. She was soon well integrated into the local art community. Among her friends were Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo and Guido Morris and like them was a member of Crypt Group which was founded in 1946 and exhibited in the Crypt of the Mariners' Church, St Ives.

During World War Two she did her bit for the war effort by making camouflage nets and knitting socks and string vests.

In 1942 Barns-Graham was elected a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists. She also joined the St Ives Society of Artists. and in 1949 became a founder-member of the Penwith Society of Artists. She was also elected an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour.

In 1949 she married the writer and later architect David Neville Lewis (1922-2020). In 1955 she was awarded a travelling scholarship by the Italian Government and in 1956-57 taught at Leeds School of Art. From 1960 to 1963 she had a studio in London and then returned to St. Ives. In 1960 she inherited a house in St. Andrews from her aunt, Mary Neish and subsequently divided her time between St. Ives and St. Andrews. In 1963 she and Lewis divorced amicably.

Barns-Graham travelled widely and visited France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland whose glaciers often appeared in her work.

She exhibited on six occasions at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh between 1938 and 1969. She also exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in London; and at Newlyn Art Gallery. Significant among the many solo exhibitions of her work were those held at Downing's Bookshop Gallery in St Ives in 1947 and 1949 and; the Redfern Gallery in London in 1949 and 1951; Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in 1956. 1959, 1960 and 1981; The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in 1995; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh in 1996-97; and at Tate St Ives in 1999 and 2005; and at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in 1981.

Barns-Graham received honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews (1992), the University of Plymouth (2000), the University of Exeter (2001), and Heriot-Watt University (2003). She died at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee on 26 January 2004.

_{Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)}