.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Writing in 1956, the artist and critic Patrick Heron described the year as a 'psychological moment' for the development of his own practice and for British art more broadly. Although he had embarked upon his first experiments in non-figurative painting earlier in the decade, it was in 1956, with the group of works now known as the 'garden paintings', that he made a commitment to abstraction.The shift occurred against a broader backdrop of change within post-war British art. Following the Second World War, the direction of modern British painting remained uncertain, divided between realist and non-figurative tendencies. A significant catalyst came with the Tate Gallery's exhibition Modern Art in the United States in 1956, which displayed the Abstract Expressionists' paintings as a decisive group for the first time in Britain. While much of the British press remained sceptical of the new American abstraction, Heron responded enthusiastically in his review, The Americans at the Tate Gallery, praising the artists' scale, flatness and energetic invention. He celebrated the 'new kind of energy and inventiveness' embodied in their work, with its exaggerated size and 'spatial shallowness', which he saw as a welcome challenge to what he described as the 'tired culture of Europe'.
Painted in the same year, May : 1956 demonstrates how profoundly these developments resonated with Heron's own practice. Loaded with powerful mark-making and eloquent brushwork, the painting stands alongside those of his American contemporaries. While embracing the energy and freedom of abstraction, he was critical of what he perceived as the Americans' excessive reliance on process, arguing that Pollock's all-over compositions could become overly uniform, with 'almost any single square inch' functioning as a miniature equivalent of the whole. For Heron, abstraction was never an end in itself. Through its layering and juxtaposition of colour, May : 1956 anticipates his later exploration of 'space through colour', generating a remarkable sense of depth and atmosphere rooted in the artist's experience of the Cornish landscape.
Open to the possibilities of a new abstract language, Heron nevertheless remained committed to the specific experience of his surroundings. In 1956, Heron settled permanently at Eagle's Nest near St Ives, where the light, colour and vegetation of his garden provided an inexhaustible source of inspiration. As Margaret Garlake has observed, Heron's work occupied a position between pure abstraction and representation, reflecting what the artist himself described as a 'middle way between pure abstraction and abject representation'. This balance is evident in May : 1956. On first viewing, the painting appears wholly abstract, but the varied brushstrokes and vibrant colour relationships suggest flashes of light through foliage and the sensation of looking into a garden. The abstract marks operate simultaneously as paint and as evocations of nature.
Although Heron's initial enthusiasm for American abstraction cooled within only a few years, May : 1956 captures the productive tension between those influences and his own highly individual vision. The result is a painting that transforms the colours, light and atmosphere of the Cornish garden into a richly orchestrated abstract composition, revealing an artist preoccupied not only with abstraction itself but with using it to capture the experience of the landscape around him.
Painted in the same year, May : 1956 demonstrates how profoundly these developments resonated with Heron's own practice. Loaded with powerful mark-making and eloquent brushwork, the painting stands alongside those of his American contemporaries. While embracing the energy and freedom of abstraction, he was critical of what he perceived as the Americans' excessive reliance on process, arguing that Pollock's all-over compositions could become overly uniform, with 'almost any single square inch' functioning as a miniature equivalent of the whole. For Heron, abstraction was never an end in itself. Through its layering and juxtaposition of colour, May : 1956 anticipates his later exploration of 'space through colour', generating a remarkable sense of depth and atmosphere rooted in the artist's experience of the Cornish landscape.
Open to the possibilities of a new abstract language, Heron nevertheless remained committed to the specific experience of his surroundings. In 1956, Heron settled permanently at Eagle's Nest near St Ives, where the light, colour and vegetation of his garden provided an inexhaustible source of inspiration. As Margaret Garlake has observed, Heron's work occupied a position between pure abstraction and representation, reflecting what the artist himself described as a 'middle way between pure abstraction and abject representation'. This balance is evident in May : 1956. On first viewing, the painting appears wholly abstract, but the varied brushstrokes and vibrant colour relationships suggest flashes of light through foliage and the sensation of looking into a garden. The abstract marks operate simultaneously as paint and as evocations of nature.
Although Heron's initial enthusiasm for American abstraction cooled within only a few years, May : 1956 captures the productive tension between those influences and his own highly individual vision. The result is a painting that transforms the colours, light and atmosphere of the Cornish garden into a richly orchestrated abstract composition, revealing an artist preoccupied not only with abstraction itself but with using it to capture the experience of the landscape around him.