On February 26th, as Guyanese recovered from an eventful three-day weekend of celebrations marking our 54th Republic Anniversary, Sir Frank Bowling OBE RA marked a milestone birthday. Bowling turned 90! He is Guyana’s oldest living artist. However, Bowling is not a regular visitor to our shores and consequently is little known to younger resident Guyanese artists.
Bowling was born in Bartica but spent many formative years in New Amsterdam. In 1953, he departed British Guiana, travelling from Georgetown on “the Booker ship, to Port of Spain” and then onward to England “on a French boat”. Bowling had his sights set on becoming a writer. However, in 1958 he enrolled in the City & Guilds of London Art School. After one term, in 1959, he moved to the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, from which he graduated in 1962 with a silver medal for painting. The years at the RCA were not continuous as he spent the autumn term of 1960 at the Slade School of Fine Art (also in London). Bowling’s temporary departure was necessitated by his marrying an administrative member of staff of the RCA and this was frowned upon. After Bowling’s then-wife transferred to another institution, he was invited to return to the RCA.
Bowling is the recipient of numerous honours and awards. To highlight a few: in 2005 Bowling became a member of the Royal Academy of Art making him the first black person to be so elected; in 2007 he was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton, UK; and in 2008 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to art. Three years later in 2011, he became a senior Royal Academician. In 2020 Bowling was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate from his alma mater the Royal College of Art and was conferred with a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) on the occasion of her biannual Birthday Honours for his contribution as an artist. Sir Frank Bowling, I am told by a long-time friend and collaborator, spent part of his birthday in the studio, a testament to his commitment to painting.
Although at first leaning substantially on figuration, Bowling appeared to have begun a shift to a dominant abstraction after moving to New York City in 1966. This relocation paved the way for the now famous map paintings in which he included the geographical outline of the newly independent Guyana in his works along with that of the South American continent. Africa and Australia also appear. His mother’s shop in New Amsterdam also figured significantly and repeatedly in paintings, hereafter. In these instances, the geographical and architectural references anchor the works to Guyana but were also clearly compositional devices to divide up, compartmentalise, and arrange the picture plane. Their presence also serves to assert the flatness of the canvas even as the wispy atmospheric or colour block application of paint beckons comparison.
Despite how Bowling pays homage to the flatness of the canvas or denies this essential aspect by building up on it with objects and paint, he has remained committed to abstraction and it is the results of his steadfast commitment that have garnered him the international recognition and reputation he has today. Bowling’s canvases are often amorphous mingling and commingling of colour. He is clearly interested in colour. But just as he is preoccupied with colour, Bowling is also interested in texture with some canvases assuming a sculptural aspect. Occasionally recognisable forms, often with personal significance such as images of his young children, emerge from within the depths of his paint application. Needless to say, Bowling is also preoccupied with paint and its potential to drip, flow, be poured, and be arrested in movement or be redirected.
As I write, Bowling’s painting Middle Passage (1970) can be seen in Entangled Pasts, 1768–now Art, Colonialism and Change which opened on February 3 and runs until April 28, 2024 at the Royal Academy in London. The exhibition brings together “over 100 major contemporary and historical works as part of a conversation about art and its role in shaping narratives of empire, enslavement, resistance, abolition and colonialism – and how it may help set a course for the future,” according to the gallery. Bowling’s painting traversed the expanse from Ottawa, Canada to London, UK and is displayed in proximity to two of J M W Turner’s (1775-1851) seascape pictures to which Bowling’s work bears relationship.
Meanwhile, Bowling’s acrylic on canvas discourse with American colour field painter Barnett Newman (1905 – 1970) Who’s Afraid of Barney Newman (1968) can be seen in Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Canada and will run until April 1, 2024. The exhibition which travelled from London’s Tate Britain offers an examination of the relationship between the Caribbean and Britain as it foregrounds Caribbean perspectives. Furthermore, we are told that the exhibition “addresses timely and relevant themes such as the role of culture in decolonization, the meaning of home, the reclaiming of ancestral traditions, the nature of Caribbean and diasporic identity, as well as racial discrimination and sociopolitical conflict.”
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Meanwhile, an exhibition of sculptures and paintings from the vast collection of former prime minister Hamilton Green and his wife Dr Jennifer Basdeo-Green is ongoing and will, unfortunately, close in a matter of days. The exhibition is special for several reasons including the fact that it is a predominately sculpture exhibition with a mix of local and West African works establishing dialogues with each other within the space. The exhibition which is titled My Home Is Where My Art Is opened on Saturday, February 24 to a small but appreciative gathering. There are many striking works within the collection from artists such as Gary Thomas, Omowale Lumumba, Colin Warde, Josefa Tamayo, and Roderick Bartrum. As two young artists opined on the sidelines, the collection is very impressive, requires quiet contemplative study, and should be an inspiration for young artists.
