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Caesar's Plume
BOWLING, Frank (Frank Bowling moved to England in 1953 and there completed his high school education. After completing National Service in the Royal Air Force force, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London in 1959 and graduated in 1962. He was awarded the Silver Medal in Painting and a traveling scholarship to South America and the Caribbean. Beginning as a figurative painter, he moved into abstraction in the 1960s after visiting New York and encountering American Abstract Expressionism. He considers himself a British artist and when the Tate Gallery bought a work by him in 1987 it was the first work by a living black British artist that they had acquired. He is also the first black artist to be elected a Royal Academician.)
Frank Bowling's 'poured' paintings explore the balance between chance and intention in painting. Contrasting colours are poured at height onto canvas. Bowling then intervenes in this chance arrangement - the canvas is held aloft, laid down, turned and twisted.
Bowling was the first black artist to be elected to the Royal Academy, in 2005.
Image: © Frank Bowling. All Rights Reserved. DACS 2024/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
Collection Area
Art
Item Number
NMW A 29401
Creation/Production
BOWLING, Frank
Date: 1975
Acquisition
Purchase - ass. of DWT, 11/5/2009
Purchased with support from The Derek Williams Trust
Measurements
Height
(cm): 167
Width
(cm): 84
Techniques
acrylic on canvas
Techniques (fine art)
art dept - fine
Fine Art - painting
Material
acrylic
Location
Gallery 15
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