Newlyn Pink

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Office of the COP President, 9 Downing Street

'Newlyn Pink' is a bold composition of clearly defined shapes and colour which suggests an image of the late afternoon sun suspended above the semi-circular hull of a fishing boat. Both the title of this work and the nautical reference tell us that this print is one of many works that Terry Frost produced in Newlyn, a fishing port in the region of Cornwall, where he lived and worked from the late 1940s until the end of his life. 

Like all of Frost’s compositions, Newlyn Pink is distinctive for its strong simple forms and ebullient colour, of which this print is a typical example. Inspired by the natural world around him, especially the Cornish landscape, Frost translated emotional and sensory responses into abstract compositions that set out to evoke similar responses in the viewer. He attempted to provoke visceral reactions through his painting, rather than purely describe or imitate the external world.

Sir Terry Frost was born in Leamington Spa. He spent four years as a prisoner of war during the Second World War, during which time he met, and was taught by, the artist Adrian Heath. After the war, he studied at Camberwell School of Arts, London and went on to settle in St Ives in 1950, where he worked as assistant to Barbara Hepworth. In 1951, after meeting the artist Roger Hilton, he began to use construction and collage in his work and over the next decade became one of Britain’s leading abstract painters. In 1952 Frost’s first major exhibition in London led to several decades of solo and group exhibitions around the world. In 1960 he visited the USA and met leading Abstract Expressionists Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, and art critic Clement Greenberg. Knighted in 1998 for his contribution to British art, Frost continued to make paintings and prints as well as designing ceramics and textiles right up to his death in 2003.

Places

Subjects

topography, abstract

Materials & Techniques

screenprint

Artist

Sir Terry Frost (1915 - 2003)

Title

Newlyn Pink

Edition

7/50

Date

1991

Medium

Screenprint

Dimensions

height: 76.00 cm, width: 57.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from London Print Studio, London, June 2003

Inscription

bl: 7/50 br: Terry Frost 91

Provenance

London Print Studio, London

GAC number

17820