Sir Terry Frost, R.A.

Acquired directly from the Artist by Ronnie Duncan, by whom gifted to the present owner

Leeds, Park Square Gallery, More Love than Money: the Private Collection of Ronnie Duncan, Esq, 1972.

Carole Kroch, 'Foresight in Festival Art Shows,' Daily Telegraph, 19^th May 1972.

The work is executed on an original, thick woven canvas. There is a very small spot of paint loss near the centre of the black vertical bar of paint running through the centre of the canvas. Otherwise the work appears in good original condition. Under UV light there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held in a simple wooden frame. Please call the department on 0207 293 6424 if you have any questions about the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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When Davie Riled Frost by Ronnie Duncan, 2006

I no longer own one of my favourite Terry Frost paintings. I gave it to a girl as part compensation for not marrying her. The marriage didn't happen but the friendship survived. So whenever I visit her I revisit the painting. It still exerts echoes of the intense excitement of when first I saw it, wet and on its easel in Frost's studio in Leeds half a century ago.

I'd like to describe it, or rather the effect it had on me. My father, who was not sympathetic to abstract art, called it 'Kirstall Forge.' There's certainly the feeling of a furnace in the hot oranges and reds at the heart of the canvas. These are contained and bound within a rough hexagonal framework of rich black paint applied with the gusto of an 'Action' painter. It's a successful, highly dramatic painting, but too gestural, too freely expressive to constitute a characteristic Frost. The explanation is this. One day Alan Davie came unannounced to Terry's studio. He stood looking at this painting for some time. Then he said in his quiet Scots voice 'It's time you loosened up a bit!' Terry, furious, said nothing at the time. But after Alan left he vented his anger on the canvas in a flurry of attacking strokes.

This was the work I saw on the easel when I happened to be visiting his studio the next day. I simply had to have it. I bore it away still wet and hung it in the sitting room of my cottage. Thrilled, I would come downstairs in the middle of the night to reconnect with its electric impact, even to savour the dizzying smell of the drying paint. The excitement, the liberating experience of having lived with it will stay with me for as long as I respond to the miracle of art; of how a true artist can somehow achieve magic by putting paint onto canvas.

Terry Frost first helped me over the hurdle of figuration. He uncovered in me a response to abstraction that became a lifetime passion. Any notion that 'abstract' implied a cold analytical concept of painting was dissolved in Terry's no-nonsense approach and in his outgoing feeling for his art and the dedication he brought to it.

I would visit him in his Headingly studio and watch the complex building up, juxtaposition and balancing of colours and shapes: Spirals, chevrons, ovals and hexagons. Here were paintings you could inhabit, free from the limitations imposed by figurative objects and images. Such art of course had its origins in nature: in landscape, air, sea, earth, the human figure. But viewed as a painted surface these works seemed to me as pure as painting can get. And if this description sounds mechanical that's because it leaves out of account the artist's intuition and the trust he must place upon it. Terry had always the courage to take risks, to push out into the unknown. 'I'm an uneven painter' he'd say ' but sometimes I pull off something bloody marvellous!'

Alan Davie, relying upon instinct and his innate painterly gifts, has made thrilling discoveries in the handling of paint. Terry Frost, while no less depending upon instinct for his innovations in abstraction, worked in a more structural, classical manner to achieve his ends. Two dissimilar abstract painters. But when I look now at the present work, I like to think that because of anger on Terry's part a work was created that uniquely and momentarily fused the outstanding merits of both artists.