April 7, 2020
Frank Bowling
Back in June 2019 I was in London to meet up with an official from the Center for Contemporary Printmaking (CCP) in the U.S. This was ahead of my residency at CCP the following month. I was to meet up with her at a gallery in central London showing some contemporary printmaking. I knew in advance that I would have some before the appointment, so I had booked a ticket to see an exhibition by Frank Bowling exhibition at Tate Britain.
I had never heard of Bowling’s work prior to seeing the show. I think I found a link to it whilst searching for interesting cultural highlights before the trip. Looking at his fascinating work, I could not understand why this artist was not more famous. He had attended the Royal College of Art alongside David Hockney and R B Kitaj. His work has been lauded and extensively collected in the U.S., but this London show would be his first major retrospective, bringing all of his major works together in one show. It soon became obvious that this huge talent must have been the victim of overt or covert racism. There could be no other explanation.
Some of the paintings were made by using a specially-made tilting table to alter the angle of the canvas and control the speed of the paint flow.
Sinclair Ashman, April 2020
