ADRIAN HEATH: A RETROSPECTIVE

Adrian Heath (1920-1992), Craster, 1972-73, Oil on canvas, 127 x 121.9cm. Courtesy of The Redfern Gallery, 2022.

If Adrian Heath’s audacious attempt to escape from Stalag 383 in Bavaria in 1942 had succeeded, British abstract art might have taken a different course. As it was, he was captured, and put into solitary confinement, where he experimented with abstract techniques (there wasn’t much to draw). Once out, he met fellow-POW Terry Frost, and encouraged him to develop his artistic style.

Heath went on to become one of the most influential British artists of the post-war period: for his painting (a cross-fertilisation of the classical London style of Constructivism, and the more romantic St Ives School); his writing (he was the author of the text Abstract Art: Its Origins and Meaning, which became a sort of manifesto for the movement), and his hospitality (his Fitzrovia studios became a regular meeting-place for many of London’s experimental artists and a venue for informal exhibitions).

His first solo exhibition was a solo show at Redfern in 1953; this latest one is a retrospective, intended to be exhibited in 2020, the centenary of his birth (but postponed for obvious reasons). It tracks us through his early angular, geometric work, through his move to a looser style in the sixties, into the semi-figurative style he developed in later years, when his subject matter became less notional, and more based on landscapes or the female form. He worked in oil and acrylic, generally, but not always, using a restricted palette.

Heath died unexpectedly in 1992: had he lived to a ripe old age he would surely have become as recognised as his abstractionist contemporaries such as Ben Nicholson, Howard Hodgkin or Roger Hilton. But his star is definitely in the ascendency, and it is surely only a matter of time before we see a retrospective in a major public gallery. In the meantime, this fine show gives us a valuable overview of his development as an artist over five decades.

Adrian Heath: a Retrospective at Redfern Gallery until January 27 (gallery reopens January 5).