Consisting of a painting made up of 28 separate elements or images, together with various coloured cubes arranged on the floor in front, it was created by Frost (1915-2003) last year when he knew he was dying.
This prominent display was not for sale; however, copies of the artist’s bold black, red and blue silkscreen with collage, Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries, are available unframed at the RA for £2950 each.
Of significantly more interest to true Terry Frost aficionados is the hanging of the artist’s work until the end of August at the Belgrave Gallery in Cornwall’s St Ives.
Since the mid-1980s the gallery worked closely with Frost.
In 2000 it published Terry Frost: Art and Image – Works on Paper Through Six Decades and is currently working on a catalogue raisonné of Frost prints, which it hopes to publish towards the end of 2005.
This warm relationship between the gallery and artist has resulted in Irving Grose of the Belgrave being able to offer a collection of 53 works on paper taken directly from Frost’s studio.
What makes this exhibition unusual is that works from every decade since the 1940s are on offer.
Prices start at a modest £480, which secures the proof screenprint of 1992 Forgetting Lorca, and rise to £5500, which is the price tag in each case for Sun Up, an acrylic and collage of 1977 and Sun Summer Collage, a work dated 1976/82.
Of particular note are two self portraits, one an etching of 1984 (£1150), the other a monotype from around 1996 (£1850).
Gallery’s collection from studio outranks RA’s ‘magnus opus’
AT the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition this year, the end wall of Gallery II was completely taken up with a work which John Hoyland, Professor of Painting at the Academy Schools, described as “Terry Frost’s magnum opus”.
