Viewing Frank Bowling: London/New York, Hauser & Wirth

Frank Bowling is arguably Britain’s greatest living abstractionist. Until recently, however, he was little known outside of art world circles this side of the pond. Happily, his public profile is on the rise (thanks in part to an enormously popular retrospective at Tate Britain in 2019 and a knighthood in the Queen’s birthday honours in 2020). Now he’s the subject of a solo show at Hauser & Wirth in London and New York.

Born in Guyana (then British Guiana) in 1934, Bowling has spent the past 40 years criss-crossing the Atlantic. His first show at the gallery brings together works from across his six-decade career that explore his stylistic shift from figuration and pop art to abstraction as well as the influence of both London and New York on his creative vision. It also celebrates his inventive approach to the materiality of paint — notably his use of thick impasto textures, acrylic gels, and metallic and pearlescent pigments.

May Shimmer (2018) is among many highlights in London: the canvas of muddy-pink tones is flecked with vibrant yellows and greens and drops of pearlescence that make it shimmer. In New York, scope out Polish Rebecca (1971), an immense canvas that was rediscovered in 2013 after around 40 years ‘rolled up and forgotten in a friend’s attic’.