Terry Frost Overview
Terry Frost is a leading figure in abstract art in Britain. Born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, in 1915, Frost did not seriously pursue a career in art until after the Second World War. Frost was taken a prisoner of war whilst he was serving abroad, and his experience of this was central to his artistic practice. He met Adrian Heath whilst imprisoned (another influential figure in modern British Art), who encouraged him to paint, and Frost produced over 200 portraits in various media before the war was over. Afterwards, Frost began to see art as a way of expressing his new-found freedom, and, further encouraged by Heath, he went to study painting in St. Ives, Cornwall before going on to study at Camberwell School of Art in London.
Frost is best known for his depictions of landscapes in an abstract style. He described his painting technique as the putting of colour references to things that he would see whilst out in the world, building up these references on the canvas to ‘rediscover’ his seen and lived experience. The influence of St Ives, its harbour, coastlines, and boats, are shown in the curved shapes of his earlier works. The sharper shapes of some of his later works are reflective of his temporary move to Leeds, where his art adjusted to the more linear forms of fields in the Yorkshire countryside.
He moved back to Cornwall in 1974, where he died in 2003. Throughout his career, he exhibited extensively, including in New York, London, Paris, and Cornwall. At Wilson55, our in-house expert Stephen Sparrow has years of experience in assessing and valuing Terry Frost’s work, so do get in touch if you’d like to learn more about a piece you own or discuss a potential sale or valuation.
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