Janet Street-Porter TV - Patrick Heron - James Fox TV - Tate online -
When Patrick first broke through in the art world he was misunderstood ... He was completely ahead of his time. 1950s Britain was still emerging from the grey gloom of rationing. But Patrick couldn’t stand British reserve and the stiff upper lip. His work was all about emotion, sensation and feeling good. Janet Street-Porter, The Genius of British Art: Modern Times, Channel 4 2010
All figurative art is abstract. All art is abstract. We are savouring these abstract elements of spacial reality. Of colour reality, of formal reality, of whatever great painting, of whatever period in the world we are looking at. Patrick Heron
In 1956 Heron returned to Cornwall: ‘To find it one must from St Ives go still further, further west. One must crawl up, down, around and along that incredible last lap of coast where the lonely road slips, folds and slides around the rocks.’ Dr James Fox, The Art of Cornwall, BBC 2010
Peter Lanyon and Patrick Heron were now the torch-bearers of the St Ives movement. ibid.
Painter, formerly also textile designer and writer on art. Born 30 January 1920 in Leeds, son of T M Heron, founder of Cresta Silks and Christian sociologist. Lived at St Ives 1925–30. Studied at the Slade School 1937–9. His painting was interrupted by the war; in 1945 he settled in London and began to paint again. Deeply impressed by the Braque exhibition at the Tate Gallery 1946. First one-man exhibition in London at the Redfern Gallery 1947 and in New York at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery 1960. Art critic to the New Statesman and Nation 1947–50, and London correspondent to Arts (New York) 1955–8. Retrospective exhibition, Wakefield Art Gallery and northern tour 1952; twelve paintings in the São Paulo Bienal 1953–4. Turned to abstract art under the influence of American abstract painting 1956 and moved the same year to Zennor, Cornwall. Awarded First Prize in the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 1959. Author of The Changing Forms of Art 1955, Ivon Hitchens 1955, Braque 1956. Tate online