Sargy Mann (1937-2015) is considered to be one of the most important artists of his generation. Throughout his life Sargy had a fascination with how we see the world around us and how best to communicate that experience through painting. The long hot summer of 1976 was a key moment in Sargy’s development as an artist. He spent several weeks in Thorington Street, Suffolk where he produced an astonishing amount of work and where his painting underwent a series of important transformations. The collection shown here dates from this period as Sargy searched for the new language of painting he knew he needed to find. The paintings he produced that summer were also his apprenticeship in using colour and were critical to the development of his later work.

From his thirties, Sargy experienced serious eye problems, and from the 1980s onwards his eyesight continued to worsen. After the total loss of his sight in 2005 he continued to paint, developing new ways of working which he found creatively liberating. It is probably for these late paintings that Sargy is best known. However, the transformative summer of 1976 was a moment of change and of breakthroughs which made these works possible.