Sir Terry Frost, R.A.

Acquired directly from the artist, and thence by descent to the present owner

The canvas is unlined. It undulates across the surface but is in good overall condition. There are small areas of slight paint separation in all four quadrants. There are also a few spots where the canvas is free of paint, one in the upper left quadrant and one in the lower left quadrant. This may be as a result of paint loss or it may be the artist's intention. There is no sign of retouching under ultra-violet light. Held in a simple painted wooden frame.
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Like both Red, Black & White, Winter, 1956 and Fields (lots 86 & 87), the present work (which comes from the same family collection) belongs to Frost's period of tenure in Leeds as Gregory Fellow of Painting. However, as each of the other paintings exhibits a separate strand of insight into the way in which Frost's work was developing, so does Black & Yellow.

Whilst much of Frost's earlier work in Leeds tends to adopt a more earthy palette than was usual in the earlier St.Ives period paintings, certain paintings do take on much more highly keyed colour, and the vivid yellows and reds of the present work gives the painting an instant impact. In this it appear to combine elements from two important Leeds period paintings. The first of these is Red, Black and White, Leeds 1955 (Private Collection), where the incredible strength of the vertical forms gives the painting its power. Frost uses this same device in Black and Yellow, but here the vertical forms are becoming freer in execution and are more akin to those found in Leeds Painting 1954-56 (Private Collection), where hot reds, yellow and oranges burn out of the painting through a thin mesh of vertical black lines. Whilst Black and Yellow is more restrained than Leeds Painting 1954-56, it nevertheless marks a point on the pathway between the two.