Sir Terry Frost, R.A.

Acquired by the family of the present owners in the 1970s

London, The Embassy of Belgium (details untraced).

Original canvas. The canvas undulates slightly in places and there is a very small old scratch and a tiny graze to the centre right of the work. There is also a very small pinhole to the canvas at the extreme left side of the upper horizontal edge which may be in keeping with the Artist's original intention. There is a faint stretcher bar mark along the lower horizontal edge. There is some cracking apparent to an area of white pigment in the upper centre of the work which is stable. There are a couple of very minor spots of old possible losses noticeable upon very close inspection to this localised area. There are some lines of historic cracking and areas of old loss to the lines of thick white impasto just to the right of centre and there are also some small lines of craquelure in places and some further possible old flecks of loss including to impasto tips. There is a light scratch to the brown pigment at the centre of the right vertical edge, but subject to the above the work appears to be in good overall condition. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals a small spot of retouching to the light grey pigment in the upper right corner and florescence to some pigments in keeping with the artist's materials. The work is presented in a stained wooden frame. Please telephone the department on +(44) 0207 293 6424 if you have any further questions regarding the present lot.
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Terry Frost’s relocation to St Ives, following his demobilisation in 1946, resulted in his immediate immersion in one of the preeminent centres of avant-garde British art in the Post-War period. Peter Lanyon, Roger Hilton, Patrick Heron, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson all formed part of an incredibly active centre of production and helped promote the Cornish town as an artistic hub of international significance. Frost had already by this point spent several years painting, stimulated by admittedly unconventional means, having been introduced to Adrian Heath in a wartime Prisoner of War camp. Frost later said that he discovered at that time ‘the importance of the Arts when there is plenty of time, no money worries, no materialistic problems.’ (Chris Stephens, Terry Frost, Tate, London, 2000, p.10).

Heath encouraged Frost to follow his incipient interest, and with an ex-serviceman's grant, Frost was accepted to study at Camberwell School of Art. Here he was introduced to another strand of artistic thought, notably that of Victor Pasmore. Like the St Ives artists Pasmore was treading a path that was drawing increasingly abstracted imagery from natural subject matter. However, whilst the St Ives tendency was to take an instinctive route to such abstraction, many of the artists associated with Camberwell were becoming increasingly interested in the theoretical aspects of composition. This simultaneous exposure to, and friendships within, the two major emerging strands of British abstraction were key to establishing the unique position that is held by Frost's art at this time.

It was in 1956, two years before the date of the present work, that Frost and his contemporaries saw the first British exhibition of American Abstract Expressionism at the Tate in London, which may well have encouraged Frost’s greater appreciation of an expressive paint surface, monochrome palette and large scale canvas. It was also throughout the period following 1956 that Frost began to develop close personal and professional relationships with the major players of American Abstract Expressionism such as Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, all of whom were to influence Frost’s work, whether in terms of scale, palette or application, whose influence can so easily be seen in the present composition.

Throughout the 1950s, Frost’s work explored the dialectic of chaos and control, abandoning clear-cut structural compositions in favour of an assortment of forms and shapes, which float and sway within the composition. As Frost later recalled ‘when I make a painting it is with paint on a flat surface and belongs to itself. It is started by one human being wondering, observing, questioning, worrying, trying to see the truth, trying to penetrate the mystery of life’ (Terry Frost, quoted in Terry Frost: Paintings, Drawings and Collages, (exh. cat.), Arts Council, London, 1977, p.14). This artistic exploration is clearly visible in the present work, with its deep, rich palette, plunging shapes and emphatic brushstrokes, combined with the dynamism of the swooping sail shape that serves to lead the eye across the canvas. All of these factors work together to give the painting a striking confidence that sets it apart as one of the most exciting and engaging works created by the Artist during the 1950s.