On View
On viewObject number2018.12
Man Overboard
Artist
Frank Bowling
(British (b. in Guyana), 1936-)
Date2000
Mediumacrylic and acrylic gel on collaged and stitched cotton canvas
Dimensionsframe: 39 1/4 × 49 1/2 in. (99.7 × 125.7 cm)
canvas: 37 × 47 in. (94 × 119.4 cm)
canvas: 37 × 47 in. (94 × 119.4 cm)
Credit LineElisabeth Claire Lahti Fund
Exhibition History"The Way Forward: New Acquisitions at the KIA," July 28 - December 2, 2018.
"Resilience: African American Artists as Agents of Change," at the KIA (September 14, 2019 - February 16, 2020).
"Unveiling American Genius," KIA Permanent Collection Exhibition, Traditional, Markin, Nay and Groos Galleries (March 1, 2021 - December 31, 2023).Label TextFor Bowling, the abstract work that dominated his career for decades isn’t, “hidebound by colour or race.” This bright canvas is an excellent example of Frank Bowling's collaged canvases from the late 1990s and early 2000s. In this work you can see that squares, strips and rectangles of brightly painted fabric are cut out and stapled into place. The artist's compositions balance large areas of saturated color with surface, collage and painterly punctuations.
Born in Guyana, Bowling studied at London’s Royal College of Art alongside David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj. Later, Bowling would become an integral part of the community of African American abstractionists upon his arrival to New York in the mid-1960s. Close engagement with peers Romare Bearden and Norman Lewis among others, not only greatly influenced the evolution of Bowling’s style and artistic practice, but also offered him a platform for his artistic voice. In 2005, Bowling became the first Black person elected to the Royal Academy of Arts.
