Frank Bowling

Frank Bowling OBE RA (actually Richard Sheridan Franklin Bowling; * February 29, 1936 in Bartica, Guyana ) is a British painter of abstract expressionism and Color Field painting. He is considered one of the most important artists of the British school of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Life

Bowling was born in Guyana, the son of a police paymaster and a seamstress. In 1950 he left America and went to England.

After his service in the Royal Air Force Bowling began studying art, despite earlier ambitions to be a poet and writer. He studied at the Chelsea School of Art in 1959 he received a scholarship at London's Royal College of Art, where artists such as David Hockney, Derek Boshier, Allen Jones, RB Kitaj and Peter Phillips were his fellow students. At his graduation in 1962, Bowling was awarded for his services the silver medal, while Hockney was awarded the gold medal.

In 1960, Bowling married his college girlfriend, who later became a writer and art critic Margaret Patricia " Paddy " Kitchen ( 1934-2005 ). They were divorced in the late 1960s. His first solo exhibition, entitled " Image in Revolt " was held in 1962 in the Grabowski Gallery, London.

The mid 1960s moved to New York City bowling, where he made ​​contacts with American artists. Supported by the New York art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-1994), he found his place in abstract art, in addition to Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman. In 1971 he exhibited in the Whitney Biennial. Between 1969 and 1972 Bowling was editor of Arts Magazine. Even today, Bowling lives in London and New York, and leads workshops in both cities.

Bowling paintings have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States and around the world are included in the major private collections. His work can also be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London.

Honors and Awards

On 26 May 2005 Bowling was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts. He was one of about a dozen proposed artist to occupy two vacant positions of the eighty -member academy. He is the first black artist in history, founded in 1768 institution.

In 2008, Frank Bowling was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II to the Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE) in recognition of his achievements.