Terry Frost - Lorca

TERRY FROST LORCA

goldmark

When you paint black, it must have colour.

Terry Frost

Colour is the eye's music.

Federico Garcia Lorca

FROST AND LORCA A Match Made in Colour Dominic Kemp Terry Frost (1915-2003) was born in Leamington Spa, a working class lad who became one of Britain's leading post-war abstract artists. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1992 and knighted in 1998. Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was born in Fuente Vaqueros, Andalucia. A poet and dramatist, he achieved international recognition. He died, aged just 38, in controversial circumstances at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Frost had always been pulled by the lure of poetry, the keenness by which it is able to distil the purity of a moment or intensity of an emotion with a single word or succinct stanza. It was the same thing he strove to achieve in his own work with colour and form.

Poetry comes to me when I am alone, maybe in a foreign country sitting at a dining table alone or riding on a train. I think I have been more influenced by poetry than I realise.

His first encounter with poetry was Milton and Keats. Federico Garcia Lorca's words came to Frost later, in 1974, around the same time he experienced the Duende at a fish market in Spain.

I've been in love with Lorca's poetry for fifteen years. Lorca awakened something in me. I love black and Lorca and the Duende and black envelop me. Images wrestle with me when I read Lorca, he probes the distance between each emotion.

The Duende is that visceral boil of passion, an entity of its own that climbs

A suite of 11 etchings with aquatint, some with handcolour, 1989, edition of 75, signed, including an original watercolour with collage.

Paper size 56.5 x 38.5 cm.

â„Ą 01572 821424

TERRY FROST

from your soul, a demon the artist has to do battle with to create spontaneous, spine-tingling art. Lorca described the Duende as ‘A power, not a work; a struggle, not a thought; an alternative to a muse, or style, God-given grace, or mere virtuosity.’ It is an onerous concept to grasp, let alone to put into practice, but nonetheless Frost and Lorca shared an energetic determination to do just that.

Red, black and white: Frost's own prime colours, the imagery conjured in Lorca's poetry immediately and deeply affected him. He had always been consumed by the desire to communicate emotion through colour and form; Lorca offered him a fresh understanding and an exciting new way to achieve this.

From the late 1970s Frost began incorporating Lorca's words and ideas into his own work. The result came in 1989 with the publication of what is perhaps his most important suite of prints: the Lorca Portfolio; eleven poems by Lorca, each accompanied by an original etching by Frost.

The first poem in the portfolio is Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, one of Spain's most adored bullfighters, gored to death at five o'clock in the afternoon. Frost's interpretation is to bring his own, well-established vocabulary of shapes to the poems. In the case of Ignacio, the familiar Frost 'boat-shape' becomes the horn of the bull - black, and spattered by the red blood of Ignacio.

We are indebted to Dominic Kemp, author of Terry Frost Prints, Lund Humphries, 2010, for the above essay, the full text of which can be found on www.terryfrostprints.com

It is important not to view Frost's work with regards to Lorca as a translation, or an homage; his images are much more than mere illustrations alongside the words; he loves the words. One of Lorca's strictures was that ‘You must not read poetry, you must love it’. Frost read and re-read Lorca, over and over again until the words themselves evaporated and this love affair was distilled. That was the power he transferred into his work.

LORCA

1.

Llanto Par Ignacio Sanchez Mejios (Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias) with hand colour signed in pencil

ÂŁ1450

TERRY FROST

2.

Canción de Jinete (Rider’s Song) with hand colour signed in pencil

£1250

LORCA

3.

Es Verdad (It Is True) signed in pencil

ÂŁ1250

www.terryfrostprints.com

TERRY FROST

4.

La Soltera en Misa (The Spinster at Mass) with hand colour signed in pencil

ÂŁ1150

LORCA

5.

La Luna Asoma (The Moon Rising) signed in pencil

ÂŁ1450

Prices include frame, vat & uk delivery

TERRY FROST

6.

Variaci贸n (Variations) signed in pencil

拢1450

LORCA

7.

Claro de Reloj (Pause of the Clock) signed in pencil

£850

℡ 01572 821424

TERRY FROST

8.

Thamar Y Amnon (Thamar and Amnon) signed in pencil

ÂŁ1450

LORCA

9.

San Rafael (Cadoba) (San Raphael (Cordoba)) with hand colour signed in pencil

ÂŁ1450

TERRY FROST

10.

Arbole, Arbole (Tree, Tree) signed in pencil

ÂŁ1150

LORCA

A suite of 11 etchings with aquatint, some with handcolour, 1989, edition of 75, signed, including an original watercolour with collage.

Paper size 56.5 x 38.5 cm.

11.

This was Terry Frost’s favourite print from the series.

El Lagarto Viejo (The Old Lizard) signed in pencil image size 25 x 25 cm

ÂŁ950

www.terryfrostprints.com

TERRY FROST

An original watercolour with collage

12.

For Lorca watercolour and collage signed, inscribed verso ‘for Lorca’ and dated ’88

£8750

This piece relates closely to some of Frost's earliest responses to Lorca.

He had been producing collages like this from about 1979, having first found Lorca in 1975. It incorporates the colours of the Spanish National flag with his own red and black: red for love and black for death, both for passion. The black triangle represents the bull of Spain, with the crescent horns and the red jab of the Picador's lance. Above and below the central motif are intriguing smudge marks in the artist's own hand, suggesting the four legs and horns of the bull, powering the image towards you. This would have been one of many preparatory studies Terry made for the Lorca portfolio, in particular the design for the solander box cover, and is one he would have been especially pleased with to have selected to accompany the special edition.

Dominic Kemp

LORCA

Prices include frame, vat & uk delivery

TERRY FROST

13.

Frontispiece lithograph signed in print

ÂŁ750

LORCA

14.

Portfolio silkscreen on calf with vellum insert signed in print

£750

℡ 01572 821424

Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham, Rutland, LE15 9SQ, 01572 821424 Open Monday to Saturday 9.30-5.30, Sunday 2.30-5.30 and Bank Holidays www.goldmarkart.com info@goldmarkart.com