Page 34 - Studio International - July/August 1967

Patrick Heron : the development of

a painter

Ronald Alley

major one-man exhibitions of Picasso, Matisse, Braque,
Bonnard and other great contemporary artists in Lon-
don in 1945-6 helped to turn British artists away from
the Neo-Romantic styles dominant in England during
the early 'forties towards the mainstream tradition of the
School of Paris. In Heron's case it was the Braque exhibi-
tion at the Tate Gallery in 1946 that made much the
most profound impression. He wrote a brilliant and very
enthusiastic review of it at the time for the New English
Weekly (one of his earliest pieces of art criticism) and
many of his pictures were strongly influenced by Braque
for the next ten years.
Heron's post-war figurative paintings were mostly do-
mestic still-life subjects or, occasionally, compositions
Patrick Heron in his studio with one or two figures in an interior. They were pictures
at St Ives
with a complex pattern of interlocking (sometimes partly
A retrospective exhibition
transparent) shapes, an interweaving of foreground and
of Heron's paintings is at
Richard Demarco Gallery, background forms, in which arabesque-like linear draw-
Edinburgh, until July 22 ing was combined with flat areas of colour. But whereas
Braque's colours tended to be somewhat muted, Heron
from 1947 onwards used bright flat colours applied
The work of Patrick Heron is bound up with what is straight out of the tube. Each area in his pictures was
probably the most crucial series of events in British art given equal importance—none was more positive or
since the war : the impact of the new American painting, negative than its neighbours. The linear structure of his
the absorption of its influence and, eventually, a reaction pictures tended by 1950 to take on an almost baroque
against it and an attempt to go beyond it. The fact that extravagance : an intricate network of meandering and
Heron is himself exceptionally articulate (having been zigzagging lines which embraced and linked together all
one of the best English art critics of the post-war period) the forms in the painting and at the same time led the
means that his development can be followed stage by eye into depth in one or more directions. The small
stage in a very clear way which provides valuable insight irregular colour patches not only created a sensuous,
into the development of recent British painting as a lyrical vibration but were used to enhance the spatial
whole. recession and to establish the relative positions of the
Patrick Heron was born at Leeds in 1920. His father, planes in space. Heron often deliberately chose a subject
T. M. Heron, was the founder of Cresta Silks Ltd and an which allowed him to achieve a complex spatial effect—
enlightened patron who employed leading artists, includ- one space leading back into another—such as a still life
ing Paul Nash, to design textiles. Part of his childhood in front of a window with a glimpse of buildings or a
was spent at St Ives in Cornwall, where his best friend harbour beyond. The harbour window theme, which is
was none other than Peter Lanyon; then from 1930-9 he particularly characteristic of this period, is one that arose
lived at Welwyn Garden City. He was very precocious as out of his visits to St Ives: although he lived in London
a painter and at the ages of sixteen and seventeen, while from 1945-56 and did not settle in Cornwall until 1956,
still at school, painted some pictures inspired by Cezanne he spent part of each summer at St Ives where he was in
and Sickert which are not only astonishingly accom- the habit of renting a studio overlooking the harbour.
plished but show a remarkable understanding of these While still a somewhat isolated figure stylistically, in
artists' work. He attended the Slade School as a part-time terms of the English art scene, his closest ties were with
student from 1937-9 but his career was then interrupted the painters of the St Ives area, such as Ben Nicholson,
almost completely for five years because of the war. When Peter Lanyon, Bryan Wynter and John Wells, and with
he resumed painting in 1945, British artists were just such artists as Ivon Hitchens, William Scott and Roger
beginning to emerge from their period of enforced isola- Hilton.
tion and to learn what the great artists of the School of His preoccupation with colour as a means of creating
Paris had been doing during the war years. A series of pictorial space—an interest which is still alive today and