Sir Richard Sheridan Patrick Michael Aloysius Franklin Bowling (born 26 February 1934, Bartica, British Guiana), known as Frank Bowling, is a Guyana-born British artist. His paintings relate to

Abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

, Color Field painting, and Lyrical Abstraction.

Biography

Early years

Bowling was born in Bartica, Guyana, to Richard Bowling, a police district paymaster, and his wife Agatha, a seamstress, dressmaker and milliner. In 1953, at age 19, Bowling moved to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, where he lived with an uncle and completed his education. After doing his National Service in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

, Bowling went on to study art, despite earlier ambitions to be a poet and a writer.Richards, Spencer A.
Frank Bowling biography.
. He studied at the Chelsea School of Art, then in 1959 won a scholarship to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It of ...

, where fellow students included artists such as

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...

, Derek Boshier, Allen Jones, R. B. Kitaj and Peter Phillips. At graduation in 1962, Hockney was awarded the gold medal while Bowling was given the silver. Bowling had been tipped to win the gold but due to his controversial 1960 marriage to Royal College Registrar Paddy Kitchen (controversial because Kitchen was a staff member; relationships were banned between staff and students; they divorced in the late 1960s), he was relegated to silver. His first one-person exhibition, entitled ''Image in Revolt'', was held in London in 1962 at the Grabowski Gallery, and other exhibitions followed. However, Bowling was frustrated at being pigeonholed as a Caribbean artist; as he said in a 2012 ''

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...

'' interview with

Laura Barnett Laura Barnett (born 1982) is a British journalist, author and theatre critic. Early life Barnett was educated at Lady Margaret School in Parsons Green, Fulham, London, followed by Spanish and Italian at Clare College, Cambridge, and newspaper j ...

: "It seemed that everyone was expecting me to paint some kind of protest art out of postcolonial discussion. For a while I fell for it. I painted a picture called the Martyrdom of Patrice Lumumba."

1960s–present

A move to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

in the mid-1960s exposed Bowling to his American contemporaries and soon won him a place in the 1971

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...

. As Maya Jaggi writes: "unlike contemporaries who founded British pop art, Bowling took a singular path, from

Bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sa ...

-esque figurative painting to an abstract art touched by personal memory and history.... Encouraged by the US

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or govern ...

Clement Greenberg, he found a freedom in abstract art, alongside

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a ho ...

and

Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense of ...

." Between 1969 and 1972 Bowling was a contributing editor of '' Arts Magazine''. Bowling now spends part of each year between

and New York, where he maintains studios. He is married to artist Rachel Scott (Bowling).

Exhibitions and collections

Bowling's paintings have been shown in numerous exhibitions in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

and are included in major private and corporate collections worldwide. His work can also be seen in the permanent collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 100 ...

and

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

, as well as the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in London. In 2017, there was a retrospective of his work at Haus der Kunst in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. A major retrospective exhibition of his work was on view from 31 May to 28 August 2019, at Tate Britain. * A major exhibition of unseen works alongside key paintings from the previous decade. Land of Many Waters, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2021)

Awards and honours

Bowling has received two

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

s. In 1965 at the First World Festival of Negro Arts, held in Dakar, Senegal, Bowling's painting "Big Bird" won the Grand Prize for Contemporary Arts. On 26 May 2005 Bowling was elected a member of the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...

. He was among about a dozen artists proposed to fill one of two vacancies in the 80-member academy, and is the first Black artist to be elected a Royal Academician in the history of the institution. In 2008 he was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(OBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours. He was knighted in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to art.

References

External links

* – official site *
Frank Bowling
at the Institute of International Visual Arts * A. J. Miles
"Frank Bowling Contemporary Abstract Artist"
*
"Artist Frank Bowling on how he paints"
''The Observer'', 20 September 2009 * Press release
"Frank Bowling – works from the studio. Curator: Spencer Richards"
Skoto Gallery *
Frank Bowling
artist page Hauser & Wirth {{DEFAULTSORT:Bowling, Frank 1934 births 20th-century British painters British male painters 21st-century British painters Black British artists Alumni of the Royal College of Art Royal Academicians Officers of the Order of the British Empire Living people Academics of Camberwell College of Arts Guyanese emigrants to England Guyanese painters 21st-century male artists Knights Bachelor 20th-century British male artists 21st-century British male artists