Adrian Heath

Adrian Heath (1920–1992) was a central figure in the development of post-war British abstraction, both through his own painting and through his role in bringing together artists associated with St Ives and the emerging Constructivist movement in London. His work evolved from tightly organised geometric compositions in the 1950s towards a freer and more expressive form of abstraction in the following decades.

Born in Burma, Heath came to England in 1925. He studied painting under Stanhope Forbes in Newlyn before entering the Slade School of Fine Art in 1939. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War, during which he served in the RAF before being captured and spending much of the war as a prisoner at Stalag 383 in Bavaria. There he continued to paint and became friends with fellow prisoner Terry Frost, whom he encouraged to take up painting. After the war Heath returned to the Slade, studying there from 1945 to 1947, before spending a period in France and holding his first solo exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Carcassonne, in 1948.

Visits to St Ives in 1949 and 1951 brought Heath into contact with Ben Nicholson and other artists working in Cornwall. At the same time, in London, he became closely associated with Victor Pasmore, Kenneth and Mary Martin and Anthony Hill. Heath consequently occupied an unusual position between the more intuitive abstraction associated with St Ives and the increasingly systematic Constructivism developing in London.

During the early 1950s his Fitzroy Street studio became an important meeting and exhibition space for abstract artists. In 1953 he published Abstract Art: Its Origins and Meaning, an early attempt to explain the development and principles of abstract painting to a wider audience. That same year he held his first solo exhibition at The Redfern Gallery, beginning a long association with the gallery. From 1954 to 1964 he served as Chairman of the Artists’ International Association and later sat on the board of the Arts Council of Great Britain.

Heath’s paintings of the 1950s are characterised by interlocking forms, carefully balanced colour and an underlying concern with geometry, proportion and structure. He often worked and reworked his compositions in layers, creating richly textured surfaces, and incorporated collage elements such as card and paper. By the middle of the decade curved forms increasingly entered his compositions. In 1957 he was included in The Redfern Gallery’s influential exhibition Metavisual, Tachiste, Abstract.

During the 1960s Heath’s painting became looser and more dynamic. The tightly constructed forms of the previous decade gave way to larger canvases animated by freer brushwork, flatter areas of colour and a greater sense of movement. Although remaining fundamentally abstract, his later work could also contain suggestions of landscape and the human figure. Painting, drawing and collage continued to provide closely related strands of his practice throughout his career.

Alongside his painting, Heath was an influential teacher. He taught at Bath Academy of Art from the mid-1950s until the 1970s and later at the University of Reading. His work was included in major surveys of post-war British art, including the British Council’s British Art Today in 1962 and Tate’s St Ives 1939–64 in 1985.

His work is held in major public collections including Tate, the British Museum, the Arts Council Collection, the British Council Collection, the Government Art Collection and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

The Estate of Adrian Heath is represented by The Redfern Gallery.