Viewing Matthew Smith and Patrick Heron at Charleston House

Matthew Smith, the post-modernist painter who was taught by Henri Matisse, was described by the painter Patrick Heron as ‘easily the most important English painter of his generation.’ Smith’s influence on Heron was profound – traceable today in still lifes as much as in Heron’s later abstract paintings.

This jaw-dropping display at Charleston tracks a scintillating dialogue between the two English painters of two different generatons, revisiting Smith through the eyes and appreciation of Heron. Both were trailblazers who were obsessed with colour, and used in in expressive and dynamic new ways on canvas. Heron would become a key contributor to the post-war art scene in Britain, as a critic as well as an artist, a prominent figure in modernist painting who pushed ideas of making use of the entire canvas.

Presenting works by each side by side, the connections are dazzling: both, for example, painted Cornish landscapes – Heron lived in Cornwall all of his life – and both were influenced by Fauvism, but suffused it with their own uplifting and refreshing style and palettes. A joyous celebration of two artists who are widely considered two of the most important colourists of the 20th century.