Wintergreens, 1986

Sir Frank Bowling RA (b. 1934)

RA Collection: Art

Frank Bowling was born in British Guiana (now Guyana), South America and moved to England in 1953. He originally thought he would be a poet and writer but in 1959 won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. His early work was figurative but following a move to New York in 1966 he was drawn towards abstraction. From about 1973 Bowling worked on more spontaneous compositions with his 'poured paintings', where the paint was literally poured onto the canvas. Bowling has had studios and exhibitions in both London and New York since the 1960s.

Wintergreens was painted at a time when Bowling's work had become much larger in scale, so much so that he had abandoned easel painting and instead either pinned his canvases to the wall to work on them, or spread them out on the floor. The surfaces became harder and less fluid, and Bowling started using strips of styrofoam to create a geometric framework to his paintings. In this work the thickly applied paint is reminiscent of the luminous effects of light in the work of English landscapists such as Turner and Gainsborough and the animated surfaces of Constable's six-footers.