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Patric Heron
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Patric Heron is one of the most interesting artists of the abstract art of 2nd half of XX century. We have to mention that art of Heron is a connected to the abstract art of Cornwall Group. In 1950s Cornwall became a center of the postwar abstract art in Britain. Between the artists who participated in Cornwall group were Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Roger Hilton, William Scott, Terry Frost and Peter Lanyon. Lyrical intonations and connection to the surroundings exactly to sea views is distinctive for that group.
Heron who is not only the world famous artist but theorist and art critic analyzed the art of Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard and George Braque. In 1940 – 1950s the influence of those masters on art of Patric Heron is very hard.
1940s starting from figurative compositions he turns to abstract art only in 1950s. In that time Patric Heron had acquired an Eagle’s Nest house in Cornwall which gardens became for him source of inspiration for ages. His «garden paintings» are very close to the tachism style. By series of «stripe paintings» compositions of horizontal or vertical colored stripes he started the connection with art of New York school. Patric Heron turned to asymmetrical compositions and arbitrary shapes.
«My main interest and item of my paintings is space full of color» – artist said in 1958. On opinion of Patric Heron painting is only visional and decorativeness that is consists of dynamical interaction of shapes and colors on the canvas has to be its main feature.
In the beginning of 1960s colors of his paintings became cleaner and he started to operate with contrasts. Owning to clear border of shapes and contrasts colors of his paintings got more intensive. The titles that Patric Heron gave to his paintings are describing the colors because color and dynamic shapes are main source for his art.
In 1969 in the essay «Color in my painting» Heron finds the term «wobbly hard-edge» that he applies to his art.
In later period (1980-1990) in his compositions he turns to «atmospherically» «garden paintings». Heron spends two years (1989 – 1990) in Australia as Artist-in-Residence in Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. In this later period Heron did not make differentiation between figurativeness and abstraction. In 1997 he turned to portrait art (Portrait of A.S. Byatt, National Portrait Gallery).
The artworks of Patric Heron are in the collection of Tate Gallery (London), Victoria and Albert Museum (London), British Museum (London), National Portrait Gallery (London), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Setagaya Art Museum (Tokyo), Brooklyn Museum (New York), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).
Selected theoretical and critical articles of Patric Heron are collected to the books «The Changing Forms of Art» (1955, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London; Noonday Press, New York, 1958) and «Painter as Critic: Patrick Heron: Selected Writings» (1998, Gooding, Mel (ed.), Tate Gallery Publishing, London).
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