Frank Bowling, whose government name is Richard Sheridan Franklin Bowling, is a fantastic artist born in what is now Bartica, Guyana, South America. In Guyana his father was a policeman and his mother was a seamstress. At the age of fifteen Bowling moved to England and the artist moved in with an uncle.
A link to the artist’s very cool website: http://frankbowling.com/
Bowling served in the Royal Air Force.
In England he studied at the Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art. At the Royal College of Art several now famous artists were his classmates including David Hockney and Peter Phillips.
Bowling began as a painter working with the landscape and doing paintings that the public would expect from an artist in the Caribbean. Thus after he left London for New York city. It was in New York city where Bowling was able to produce what most critics say are his strongest works. This was the period of time in the United States when Abstract Expressionism was en vogue.
Bowling came to the United States in the mid 1960s.
From 1969 to 1972 was an editor for Arts Magazine.
Winner of two Guggenheim Fellowships.
Two very important honors for the artist include being elected a member of England’s royal Academy of Arts. The first person of color to be a member!
Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2008.
Price range information: Sorry none available.
In this clip a brief bio from the Tate.
A brief clip from a longer biographical documentary filmed about Frank Bowling.
If you love this artist’s work as much as I do then be sure and check out artist Richard Mayhew. Mayhew is also a person of color born in 1924 that enjoys painting landscape but in a loose and relaxed manner that has more to do with tonalism and feeling of the atmosphere rather than a specific time or space. Below an example of Richard Mayhew’s.
D
Diattaart Blog 