Adrian Heath 1920-1992
copyright The Redfern Gallery
Painter of abstracts and semi-abstracts in oils and acrylic; collagist and constructivist. Born in Burma, he studied art under Stnhope Forbed at Newlyn in 1938 and attended the Slade School in 1939 and 1945-7 under Schwabe. As a prisoner of war he met and taught Terry Frost and in 1949 and 1951 visited St Ives where he met Ben Nicholson. In the early 1950s he was associated with the Martins, Pasmore and Anthony Hill and arranged exhibitions in his studio for abstract artits. Influenced by Hambridge, Ghyka and D'Arcy Thompson, he published the essay Abstract Art: Its Origins and Meaning , Alec Tiranti, 1953, and between 1953 and 1954 made a series of constructions. He exhibited first at the Musee Carcassone, 1948, and from 1953 showed at the Redfern Gallery, London, as well as at other London gallerues, in the provinces and abroad. his work has been shown in may group exhibitions and is in national and international public collections including the Tate Gallery and the Hircshorn Gallery, Washington. he taught at Bath Academy of Art from 1955 to 1976, and at the University of Reading from 1980-5. In 1969 he was Artists in Residence, university of Sussex, and Senior Fellow, Glamorgan Institue of Higher Education, 1977-80. His painting moved from abstraction to semi-abstraction and developed a style which retained memories of nature and combined the abstract with the experience of the motif. his drawings from nature and the figure became sources for painterly invention.
LIT:
Exhibition catalogue, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 1981
read less