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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Frank Bowling: London / New York

May 5 – July 30, 2021
542 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011, United States

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, “Texas Louise,” 1971 © Frank Bowling. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.