Sir Frank Bowling's artwork on show in new exhibit

Two artworks by the painter Sir Frank Bowling will be displayed for the first time in a new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

Sir Frank, 92, who in 2005 became the first black artist to be elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, said it was a "great pleasure" to have his work shown in the city.

The exhibition, Frank Bowling: Seeking the Sublime, will run from Friday until January, and will feature two of his works for the first time - Swan Upping (2020) and Yellow Map (2025).

Habda Rashid, the senior curator of modern and contemporary art at the museum, said it would "give visitors the ability to make these beautiful connections across decades, and across continents even".

"Cambridge has long been a place of inquiry and reflection, and I am delighted to be part of that tradition," Sir Frank said.

The artist, who was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2020, was born in Guyana in 1934 and arrived in London in 1953 at the age of 19.

By the early 1960s he was recognised as an original force in London's art scene, with a style combining figurative, symbolic and collaged elements.

Rashid said: "These are kind of masterpieces.

"It is work that really signifies his practice as well, and is beautifully abstracted but has meaning," she added.

"I think there are a really beautiful addition that can make art more broader and add really interesting and different views on what painting can do," she said.

The display will chart the evolution of Sir Frank's career, the museum said.

Martin Gayford, one of the curators of the exhibition, said: "To see Frank's work in a museum which has such a range of other work, you can see how it connects in all sorts of way.

He said Sir Frank was "someone who is absolutely driven to his talent".

Additional reporting by PA Media.

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