Installation view, ‘FRANK AT 90,’ Hauser & Wirth London, 2024. © Frank Bowling. All Rights Reserved, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London 2024. Photo: Damian Griffiths

A special presentation of two monumental works at Hauser & Wirth London to celebrate the 90th birthday of Sir Frank Bowling OBE RA

Sir Frank Bowling OBE RA celebrates his 90th birthday with a presentation at Hauser & Wirth London of two monumental works, dating from 1973 and 2023 – 2024, on view through Saturday 16 March 2024.

Bowling painted ‘Hello Rosa New York’ at his SoHo studio on 535 Broadway, naming it after American art historian Barbara Rose, whose 1965 essay ‘ABC ART’ in Art in America, defined one of the strands of minimalism.

Leading up to 1971, color became the primary focus of Bowling’s paintings, transitioning towards a form of pure color-field painting influenced by abstract expressionists such as Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. By 1972, he abandoned stencils and maps, showcased in his earlier large-scale landscape-format paintings at the Whitney Museum of American Art. ‘Hello Rosa New York’ stands as one of the first paintings created during this pivotal period, capturing Bowling’s evolving approach to color and form.

In his paintings of the early 1970s, the artist recognised long lines that his studio floorboards in New York imprinted on his canvases as they were left to dry. This ‘found geometry’ gave Bowling an organically emerging structure to work within. In ‘Hello Rosa New York,’ the horizontal landscape format and the clear dividing lines of the marks give a sense of paint in constant flow or liquid motion.

Opening Hours :

Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm

Location:

23 Savile Row
London W1S 2ET

Text and pictures, copyright hauser and wirth and the artist