Spotlight

Patrick Heron

Richard Ingleby
Saturday 21 October 2000 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

It's about a year and a half since the sad news came through that Patrick Heron had died at home at Eagle's Nest, the house that meant so much to him on the hill at Zennor on the Cornish coast. In that short time we have moved into a new century, yet Heron already looks like one of the most significant and truly convincing figures of 20th century English art.

It's about a year and a half since the sad news came through that Patrick Heron had died at home at Eagle's Nest, the house that meant so much to him on the hill at Zennor on the Cornish coast. In that short time we have moved into a new century, yet Heron already looks like one of the most significant and truly convincing figures of 20th century English art.

This exhibition of his early work, 28 paintings made in the immediate post-war years 1945-1955, shows a man coming to terms with his own ideas of pictorial space and the use of line and rhythm in art. Heron was better known as a writer at this point of his life: but as these works show, he was also inventing the language of his own art, building bridges from the European tradition of Bonnard and Braque towards the kind of painting that was originating on the other side of the Atlantic. But resolutely in his own terms.

Key to these paintings is what Heron described as "the marriage of indoor and outdoor space": a balance which can, at first glance, seem convoluted, but which reveals itself slowly with a growing clarity.

Waddington Galleries, 11 Cork Street, London W1 (020-7851 2200) to 10 Nov

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in