Bowling was born in Guyana (then British Guiana) in 1934, and moved to London at the age of 19. For 60 years, he has moved between studios in London and New York as he developed into a master of his medium. At the age of 85, he still paints every day, experimenting with new materials and techniques.
Bowling observes that his shift from figuration to abstraction came when he moved from London to New York. “As I became more involved in the making of paintings, I realized that one of the main ingredients in making paintings was color and geometry. And in New York I found ways of proceeding to deepen my investigations in that area,” says the artist. “New York was very much the place where it was all happening.”
Like the Color Field painters in the early 1970s, he began pouring paint directly from the can onto his canvases. He continues to explore pure abstraction, though his titles or color palettes often reference the landscape of his native Guyana. He also has incorporated geometry and maps into his paintings such as in this print titled “Pouring Over 2 Morrison Boys & 2 Maps I.”
In 2005 Frank Bowling became the first black British artist elected as a Royal Academician and was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2008 for services to art. Bowling’s paintings have been exhibited widely and internationally. In 2019, Frank Bowling’s major retrospective opened at Tate Britain, London. His works are included in important private and corporate collections worldwide including the Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Gallery in London.
