Orange and blue for Aphrodite

SIR TERRY FROST RA

Leamington Spa 1915 - 2003 Cornwall

Ref: CB 118

Orange and blue for Aphrodite

Signed, dated and inscribed on the reverse:

Orange / & Blue / for Aphrodite / Terry Frost 95

Acrylic, collage and assemblage on canvas:

60 ¼ x 48 ¼ in / 153 x 122.6 cm

Frame size: 62 ¼ x 50 ½ in / 158.1 x 128.3 cm

Provenance:

The artist’s Estate;

Beaux Arts, London;

private collection, UK, acquired from the above in 2012

Exhibited:

London, Beaux Arts, Terry Frost: Between sun and moon, 22nd February-17th March 2012, pp.6, 8, illus. in colour p.9

Orange and blue for Aphrodite is a joyfully life-affirming image reflecting the colours, rhythms and forms for which Terry Frost is celebrated. In this large upright canvas, Frost balances pure, flat areas of warm orange at the top and deep cobalt blue at the bottom with a lighter swathe of dappled white and blue, like a glimpse of sky between the sun and sea. Across this luminous central band, Frost introduces symbols such as the v-shaped wedge, its acute, tapering angle introducing tension and a sense of movement from the calligraphic zigzag strokes to the arrow heads beneath the suspended form of a buoy attached to the top of the canvas. This horizontal movement is countered by the gravitational pull of the floating form, its outline echoed in the cut-out and collaged canvas curves in light blue and black, which are drawn into the slipstream of the composition. Frost began experimenting with collage as early as 1950, which he attributed to his work for Barbara Hepworth, but it became increasingly prominent and complex in his later works with forms suspended, like this one, from the support. He began painting with acrylics in the 1960s and 1970s and found the quick-drying media was perfect for painting large areas of intense colour which could envelop and absorb the viewer.

The abstract form of the wedge, which increases the dynamism of the painting, became a symbol of the female nude in Frost’s work and was often linked to his interest in the goddess of love, Aphrodite, and the Cornish goddess, Gwennor, who emerges from the sea.