Composition: Blue and Red

Andrew Forge wrote in the introduction to the 1959 Hanover Gallery catalogue, 'In his [Heath's] latest pictures it seems as if the shape of the canvas and the colours of the palette have gradually been brought to life and have yielded up forms that act upon each other with a measured force that stems from their own identity just as the way a particular door slams stems from its nature as a door. As we look at these pictures we see that the richness that had first impressed us is not so much to do with texture and colour as with movement. This is the secret of their density: they are not patterns but groups of forms, each part of which is substantial, whose wheeling and manoeuvring appear to have been arrested in a state of asymmetrical balance [...] This, the picture, is a significant moment in the life of these forms - but it is also their history and their future' (Exhibition catalogue, Adrian Heath: recent paintings, London, Hanover Gallery, 1959).