Tate Etc. Bowling May 2019
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TATE Ere. AWASH WITH THE COLOUR OF LIFE Frank Bowling at Tate Britain Matthew Collings | Summer 2019 The Guyana-born British artist studied alongside David Hockney and RB Kitaj in the early 1960s, before making a name for himself in New York as both a painter and art critic. Now based in London, Frank Bowling continues his visionary approach that fuses abstraction with personal memories. Ahead of his retrospective exhibition, a friend and former student pays homage to the artist who has spent a lifetime pushing the possibilities of paint had Frank Bowling (b1934) in mind whenI came up with time I'd seen it since that afternoon at the Academy 40 years an almost monochrome painting in my last year at the before, I foundit to be incredibly subtle - a representation of i Byam Shaw art school, where he was my tutor. WhenI first trees and chickens, half its entire surface is loping, loose, hori worked on the picture it was of a naked woman in a sort of zontal washy strokes, practically abstract. Frank had pointed pop art flatspace, which, after a few weeks, wouldn't stop look out the picture's sophistication, but I'd inwardly rolled my ing awkward. In an attempt to revise it, I painted over much of eyes, thinking it must be the work of a loser because it was it with white, quickly washing and knifingon the paint, think merely a little yellow ochre landscape. ing I was about to redo the nude. But then I noticed a lot of I recount this discussion about work by artists other than elegant balances. It was a white abstract now. I didn't know Frank, because he imparted to me an important lesson that whatI'd done, but I thought: Well, this could be a painting ifI took a while to absorb: that a painting has a formator a layout think of some of the things Frank has said in tutorials. for a reason. It's what you see first and it's what causes the The task of a tutor in those days was to pay occasional work to have, or fail to have, visual strength. I think of him visits to students in their individual cubicles in the art school whenI think about composition and the overall logic and read and improvise some helpful brief analysis. Once, we decided ability of a painting, whether abstract or figurative. You can to do the tutorial in an exhibition instead, a survey of post-war overlook it because you're not mentally prepared, or you can British art at the Royal Academy that included one of Frank's open up to it. paintings. After pints of Guinness forlunch we got the number At the exhibition we had looked at his painting Mirror 14 bus fromFulham Broadway to Piccadilly and, once in the 1964-6, completed when he was 30, five years beforehe was show, he talked about qualities of surface, mark-making and awarded a solo show at the Whitney Museum in New York. On pictorial organisation in paintings by figures who seemed the way out of the show, he was dismayed not to findany pub awfully unglamorous to me. And, conversely, the ones I licity material in the lobby about his own career, where there thought were great and wanted to emulate, he analysed with was plenty relating to the other artists represented. His feel a cool objectivity.I was interested in a painting in the display ings were hurt, andI thought of the advice he often gave about by RB Kitaj, showing David Hockney as Superman. Frank toughness, both visual (how paintings work) and emotional pointed out the way free-flowing paint was manipulated to (how a painter copes with worldliness). You had to make your create a particular border between a space and an object: the work but also a career, treading these parallel paths with care. contour of Superman's knee. I soon became aware of the role adversity had played One painting was by the Royal Academician, Robert throughout practically the whole of his 60-year (so far) career, Buhler, who had taught Frank at the Royal College of Art. purely because of his skin colour. But I was also impressed by When I saw it again recently in a photograph online, the first his particular morality. He is true to himself when he paints, Frank Bowling Mirror 1964-6, oil paint on canvas, 310 x 216.8 cm Frank Bowling Frank Bowling Raining Down South Towards Crab Island 1968, acrylic paint and 1983, acrylic paint, spray paint on canvas, acrylic gel, acrylic foam 348.5 x 275.5 cm and other materials on canvas, 175.3 x 289.6 cm but he doesn't convey egotism: he is thoughtful. He works by anchored off the coast of the Belgian Congo,firing cannon shot spontaneous improvisation but never makes a painting that into the bush everyday,just out of random colonialist sadism. is only a spectacle or a provocation. He thinks about painterly Why do I remember this? Conrad's book epitomising coloni structures every moment of the day. He actually wakes up alism as horror obviously has a loaded meaning for an artist thinking about them. who has experienced racism as Frank has. On the other hand, Ifl think of a paintinglike TowardsCrah Island 1983 I see he often feels suffocated by his background,dismayed that the the work of a painters' painter. The concept of a painters' painter art world might think only about his skin-tone. He says is that some painters are appreciated by other painters because Guyana for him sometimes feels like the heavy rock Sisyphus they, in particular, expose painterly operations: they make the is doomed to be forever rolling up a hill. medium into a subject. The wider public is quite understandably Contradictory as it might sound,I think that much of his not so interested in technique,and more used to looking for what painting sensibility is very English. He might rightly be con the technique is in aid of: the meaning or the story: Frank pushes sidered international or Caribbean or global, or even a New meanings and stories away, essentially, but brings them back in, York artist; he is all these. But it was in an English context as hints, in his titles. Crab Island is known to him from his that he was firstformed artistically. He went to London art Guyanese background. He didn't set out to paint it, but it schools and the first serious art he saw was in London's seemed vividly there once the painting was done. National Gallery. When we think we see abstract expression The painting was done in the year I lent him Heart of ism in his paintings because they are large-scale, brightly Darkness, having just read it. We were each equally awed by coloured and mostly freeof representation,we're really seeing the amazing scene Joseph Conrad describes of a man-of-war two traditions. These are the broad,stark improvisations and 1962 1965 Frank Bowling Chronology c Compiled by Laura Castagnini Eldest son Dan is born to Paddy On an extended visit to New Kitchen; second son Benjamin York, Larry Rivers and critic .'J is born to Claire Spencer; and curator Frank O'Hara see graduates from the RCA with his work and encourage him a thesis on Piet Mondrian and to leave London for New York ;; is awarded the silver medal for painting (Hockney is awarded 1966 the gold medal); offered a trav- Relocates to New York and elling scholarship to Rome, lives at the Hotel Chelsea but he requests to travel to before moving to his first studio .E. Barbados, Trinidad and Guyana, on Beekman Street; Bowling i which becomes his first trip is persuaded by Roland Penrose l home in almost a decade; his to represent Britain at the First 1 first major exhibition, Image World Festival of Negro Arts � in Revolt, is held at Grabowski in Dakar, Senegal, where he Gallery in London (with Boshier), is awarded the grand prize for l from which Birthday1961 is pur- contemporary art (painting); .£ chased by the Arts Council; sets marriage to Paddy Kitchen ends up a discussion group on colour with chemist Paul Harrison, 1967 i architect Jeremy Thomas and Awarded the Guggenheim i sculptor Jerry Pethick; meets Fellowship and moves to a stu- I American painter Larry Rivers, dio in SoHo, New York, where i who becomes a long-term he lives and works until 1975; friend and mentor experiments with thin acrylic washes to 'flood the canvas 1963 with colour'; Bowling is taught � Joins Camberwell School of Art by Rivers to make stencils of and Crafts as a part-time tutor, maps using an overhead projec- where he creates silkscreen tor, which he uses to create 1934 1958 f images on canvas of 'Bowling's his 'map paintings' ! Richard Sheridan Franklin Attends Regent Street Variety Store' for use in later Bowling (Frank Bowling) is Polytechnic, Chelsea School paintings; joins the London 1968 0! born on 26 February in Bartica, of Art and later City and Guilds Group under the presidency Visits New Amsterdam with j Guyana (then British Guiana), School, London in 1959; Bowling of Claude Rogers, and in 1967 photographer Tina Tranter, the eldest son to Richard is encouraged and supported is elected Vice-President where they document people Sheridan Bowling, a police pay by Carel Weight, then head of and places of personal signifi- master, and Agatha Elizabeth painting at the RCA u 1964 cance; Bowling creates stencils ifC < Franklin Bowling, a dress-maker �£ Third son Sacha is born to Irena from these to use in his work _§ � 1959 3:':.