Biography
As Mel Gooding wrote, in his extensive monograph published in 1994, Heron was ‘a visual inventor of the first rank, an originator of images and a colourist of genius’. The paintings shown in this exhibition illustrate Heron’s early development between the years 1945 and 1955. His experimentation with the colour, texture, form and rhythm of paint acknowledges a debt to the great French modernists such as Braque, Matisse and Bonnard and foreshadowed his abstract paintings of the late 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. These paintings are characteristic of a time in which the artist was consolidating a style unmistakably his own. Although Heron spent his formative years in Cornwall, from 1945 until 1956 he was based in London. The works shown comprise a wide range of subject matter that includes still life, landscape and portraiture many of which refer to the shapes, textures and light quality of the Cornish landscape. This is clearly apparent in works such as Mousehole : 1946 and The Blue Window : 1952. As Heron later reflected on this period, ‘The feeling of a sort of marriage of indoor and outdoor space, through the aperture of the window frame, itself roughly rectilinear and parallel to the picture surface, was really the main theme of all my paintings – or nearly all – between 1945 and 1955’. He increasingly came to emphasise the ‘exclusively pictorial experience’ as opposed to searching out meanings and symbols in his paintings. Colour for Heron was the indispensable means for rendering pictorial space. He wrote in 1958 ‘My main interest, in my painting, has always been in colour, space and light…and space in colour is the subject of my painting today to the exclusion of everything else’.
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Patrick Heron, Valley Bottom, Porthgwarra : 1951, 1951 oil on canvas 11 x 22 in / 28 x 56 cm
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Patrick Heron, Zennor : 1945, 1945 oil on board 9 x 12 in / 22.9 x 30.5 cm
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Patrick Heron, Mousehole : 1946, 1946 oil on board 9 x 12 in / 22.9 x 30.5 cm
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Patrick Heron, Portrait of Susan (St Ives) : 1951, 1951 oil on canvas 20 x 16 in / 50.8 x 40.6 cm
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Patrick Heron, Project for Restaurant Mural : 1951, 1951 oil on board 16 x 70 in / 40.6 x 177.8 cm
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Patrick Heron, Self-Portrait : 1951, 1951 oil on canvas 20 x 16 in / 50.8 x 40.6 cm
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Patrick Heron, Square Leaves (Abstract) : July 1952, 1952 oil on canvas 30 x 20 in / 76.2 x 50.8 cm
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Patrick Heron, Still-Life with Bottle, Hyacinth, Lamp, Fruit and Percolator : 1947, 1947 oil on canvas 24 x 20 in / 61 x 50.8 cm
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Patrick Heron, Still-Life with Peaches, Grapes and Bottle : 1947, 1947 oil on canvas 16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
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Patrick Heron, Still-Life with Red Fish : 1948, 1948 oil on canvas 25 x 30 in / 63.5 x 76.2 cm
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Patrick Heron, The Blue Window : 1952, 1952 oil on canvas 36 x 18 in / 91.4 x 45.7 cm
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Patrick Heron, The Playing-Card Girl : 1952, 1952 oil on canvas 30 x 25 in / 76.2 x 63.5 cm
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Patrick Heron, Figure in Harbour Room - Orange and Grey : 1952-1954, 1952-54 oil on canvas 36 x 18 in / 91.4 x 45.7 cm
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Patrick Heron, Gas Stove with Kettle and Saucepan, 1945-46 oil on canvas 20 x 30 in / 50.8 x 76.2 cm
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Patrick Heron, Girl in Garden : 1953, 1953 oil on canvas 36 x 18 in / 91.4 x 45.7 cm
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Patrick Heron, Girl seated in Chair opposite Female Head and Bust : 1952, 1952 oil on canvas 28 x 36 in / 71.1 x 91.4 cm
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Patrick Heron, Green Table and Coffee-Pot in front of Sea Window : 1953, 1953 oil on board 48 x 30 in / 121.9 x 76.2 cm
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Patrick Heron, Halsetown, 1945-46 oil on canvas 16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
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Patrick Heron, Inlet of the Sea : Isles of Scilly : 1952, 1952 oil on canvas 18 x 36 in / 45.7 x 91.4 cm
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Patrick Heron, Juan les Pins from the Cap d'Antibes : December 1948, 1948 oil on canvas 12 1/2 x 25 in / 31.7 x 63.5 cm
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Patrick Heron, La Garoup, Cap d'Antibes : January 1949, 1949 oil on canvas 25 x 30 in / 63.5 x 76.2 cm
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Patrick Heron, Girl in Harbour Room : 1955, 1955 oil on board 48 x 72 in / 121.9 x 182.9 cm
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Patrick Heron, Abstract : Red and Black : August 1952, 1952 oil on canvas 36 x 17 1/2 in / 91.4 x 44.5 cm
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Patrick Heron, Behind Tregenna : 1950, 1950 oil on canvas 22 x 11 in / 56 x 28 cm
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Patrick Heron, Christmas Eve : 1951, 1951 oil on canvas 72 x 120 in / 182.9 x 304.8 cm
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Patrick Heron, Churchyard with Arch and Cedar Tree : 1951, 1951 oil on canvas 16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm