Frank
Bowling

Born in the former British colony of Guyana, Frank Bowling studied at the Chelsea School of Art and then the Royal College of Art in London, where, at age 19, he discovered the landscape paintings of Constable and Turner, whose atmospheric qualities have inspired his work. Bowling’s paintings are figurative, embedded with biographical and historical reflections, in the spirit of Francis Bacon.

After he moved to the United States in 1966, his work shifted towards abstraction, initially retaining figurative elements, as in the “Map Paintings”, before entering a totally abstract phase in which he let paint drip directly onto the canvas.

Frank Bowling is a major figure in contemporary abstraction; in forsaking the transcendent, the mystical, and the immaterial, he anchors his painting in the personal and the political. Although Frank Bowling denies belonging to the Black Art Movement, he nevertheless asserts the specificity of the “black experience” that he sees as universal and as forming an equally important part of modernity, together with all other experiences.

Knighted in 2020, Frank Bowling is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts, the first black person ever to be elected by this institution. Frank Bowling’s work is being exhibited at the Pinault Collection for the first time as part of Before the Storm.