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Re: Ex-POW Artist Passes

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: September 04, 2003

"Terry Frost, master of colour, dies

Sir Terry Frost, one of Britain´s most respected abstract artists, who honed his skills in a prisoner-of-war camp during the second world war, has died aged 87. He died on Monday night near his home in Newlyn, Cornwall, with his family around him. He had been diagnosed with cancer this year, a spokeswoman for the Royal Academy of Arts said.

Sir Terry was at the forefront of abstract art in Britain and was renowned for his use of vibrant colours, dolloping blobs of colour and spiralling squiggles on to his canvasses. Patricia Singh, a friend and colleague who represented Sir Terry at London´s Beaux Arts Gallery for 25 years, said: "He was a tremendously influential force in British art and will go on being so. He had a very, very joyful personality and that was the great strength of his work.

"They were life-affirming paintings that were full of colour and air. A lot of his inspiration was Cornish, from the sea and the light and the reflections on the water. He was a very noisy person who would say the secret of long life was champagne and Guinness."

Adrian Searle, the Guardian´s art critic, said Sir Terry had made abstract art light and pleasing to look at. "He never quite escaped his love of colour, that came out of a love for Matisse, nor had the weight of some of the American abstract artists.
"I think psychologically he was caught mid-Atlantic, somewhere between New York and St Ives, and his work is kind of lightweight, but is about pleasure."
Sir Terry described his painting as an addiction, and said there would be no point in staying alive if he could no longer paint. "It´s something I love, that´s what you´ve got to remember. I know if I don´t keep working - then I would be old."
Sir Terry was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, in 1915. His love of art appears to have begun when he spent four years in a prisoner-of-war camp during the second world war.

He was serving with the 5th Middle East Commandos when he was captured, and spent his four years in captivity drawing and painting portraits of fellow prisoners. He was encouraged by Adrian Heath, another abstract painter in the camp, to think of art as a vocation.

His later use of vivid colours can also be traced back to his time as a prisoner, almost as the antithesis of the drab, dull world in which he was trapped. He believed the experience left him with a "heightened perception" of the world which encouraged him to paint.

After the war Sir Terry moved to St Ives, dividing his time between the Cornish town and Camberwell School of Art and Crafts in London. At Camberwell, under the guidance of Victor Pasmore and the influence of St Ives artists such as Ben Nicholson and Peter Lanyon, Sir Terry moved into abstraction. By the late 50s he was established as a leading artist, with one-man shows in London and New York.
Andrew Wilson, deputy editor of Art Monthly, said: "Terry Frost was never pompous about his work. He was finding a way of putting in paint his emotional response to the things that moved and aroused him, and this could be embarrassing - however true. On occasion his generosity of spirit might have counted against him critically, but his position in the history of postwar British art is assured."
Sir Terry was Gregory fellow in painting at Leeds University from 1954 to 1956. During the 60s he taught at Reading University, where he later became head of painting studies.

His last show was at Tate St Ives, where he painted a large mural. Sir Terry had lived near Newlyn since 1974. He leaves a wife, Kathleen, and five children.

©Guardian Unlimited; Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003"