Patrick Heron
Born – Leeds, England 1920
Died – Zennor, Cornwall, England 1999
Patrick Heron described Matisse’s Red Studio as, “the most influential single picture in my career”. As he wrote, in 1958, that “Space in colour is the subject of my painting”, his early admiration for Matisse’s masterpiece was significant. Heron’s art training was minimal – he attended the Slade School of Art part-time for two years. He worked as an assistant in the Bernard Leach Pottery in St Ives (1944-1945) and came into contact with Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. An art critic as well as a practitioner, his views were published in his book, The changing forms of Arts (1955). Until 1956, he produced figurative painting. This developed into a concern to make the paint, colour and spatial organization take precedence over content. Striped paintings of the late 1950s gave way to the “formal vocabulary” of square and lozenge shapes. An emphasis on drawing returned to his work during the 1960s. Works made through the 1980s and 1990s, Untitled 10-11 July, for example, provided a softer, looser focus on his primary concern, colour. However, there was a return to the graphic qualities of earlier work, emphasising the unifying element of the ground on which the linear patterns rest.
Masterpieces:
- Horizontal Stripe Painting
- Cadmium with Violet, Scarlet, Emerald, Lemon and Venetian
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.