Sir Frank Bowling was born in 1934 in Bartica, Essequibo, British Guiana and now lives and works in London. Bowling is driven by his fascination with pushing the vast and radiant possibilities of paint. His experiments with ammonia, gel, metallic and pearlescent paint create incandescent reactions on the canvas. Bowling has experimented with ideas of chance and ‘controlled accidents’, pouring paint from a two-metre height to create his visually arresting ‘Poured Paintings’. Later sculptural paintings included embedded objects and thickly textured canvases, evoking landscape, riverbeds and geologic strata. Visible in his work are legacies of both the English landscape tradition and American abstraction. His recent work encompasses collage, poured paint, stencilling, staining, and stitching canvases, bringing together techniques honed over a lifetime of painting. His critical writings represent a significant contribution to intellectual debates on ‘black art’.
Recent solo exhibitions include the 2017–19 touring exhibition, Mappa Mundi, and a retrospective at Tate Britain in 2019. Bowling became a Royal Academician in 2005 and was awarded the OBE for services to Art in 2008 and a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2020.
Sir Frank has generously taken part in the fourth edition of School Prints, creating a limited edition print that will be donated to local schools and sold exclusively from The Hepworth Wakefield shop to fund the engagement work with schools. Of the project he said:
“I have always tried to support young artists and opportunities to nurture their development. This project offered a way to do so with young children, which I feel is important.”
