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The Arts Intel Report

Frank Bowling: London/ New York

May 21 – July 31, 2021
23 Savile Row, Mayfair, London W1S 2ET, United Kingdom

Though Frank Bowling is British, he is known as more of a transatlantic man. He was born in British Guyana, then left to study and work in the U.K. As he started gaining early acclaim, Bowling made his way to New York, where he encountered Abstract Expressionism and pop art. Though he never abandoned London, from then on he kept a studio practice on the East River, where he brought the influences of America into the English landscape tradition. Bowling moved between both cities, taking incomplete paintings with him. “I would just roll the lot up and move,” he once explained. “And I knew that when I got to the other end, I could roll them out again and continue to work.” In an exhibition that spans Hauser & Wirth’s New York and London spaces, paintings from 1967 to the present day are on view. —E.C.

Frank Bowling, “Sand Circle,” 1983. © Frank Bowling Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Photo: Thomas Barratt.