Frank Bowling Art
British, b. 1936
Frank Bowling, born Richard Sheridan Franklin Bowling on February 26, 1934, in Bartica, British Guiana (now Guyana), is a pioneering artist whose career has reshaped the landscape of abstract art. Renowned for his vibrant, textured paintings and groundbreaking approach to abstraction, Bowling has spent over six decades forging a unique artistic identity that bridges personal narrative, cultural history, and formal experimentation. His journey from his early days in Guyana to becoming one of the most influential figures in contemporary art is a testament to his resilience, innovation, and commitment to his craft.
Bowling’s early life in British Guiana was marked by a fascination with art and storytelling, which later found expression in his work. In 1953, he moved to London, where he initially pursued a career in writing and acting before enrolling at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 1959. At the RCA, Bowling studied alongside luminaries such as David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj. Although he initially explored figurative painting, his style evolved dramatically over time. He graduated in 1962, earning the prestigious Silver Medal for his work, and quickly established himself as a rising star in the British art scene.
In the mid-1960s, Bowling’s practice began to reflect his growing interest in abstraction, influenced by his exposure to American abstract expressionism during a formative visit to New York. He became increasingly preoccupied with the expressive possibilities of colour and texture, leading to his renowned "Map Paintings" in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These works feature large-scale abstract compositions overlaid with stencilled outlines of continents, exploring themes of geography, identity, and post-colonial history. The "Map Paintings" reflect Bowling’s dual identity as both Guyanese and British and mark his early efforts to merge personal experience with universal themes.
Throughout the 1970s, Bowling established studios in both London and New York, deepening his engagement with abstract art. During this period, he began experimenting with techniques such as pouring and staining paint directly onto the canvas, creating luminous works characterized by their rich, layered surfaces. This innovative approach earned him critical acclaim and positioned him as a significant figure in the New York art world, particularly among proponents of colour field painting.
Bowling’s later work continued to push boundaries, incorporating materials such as acrylic gels, gold leaf, and collaged elements. His large-scale paintings evoke a sense of movement and transformation, often inspired by his reflections on memory, migration, and the natural world. Despite the deeply personal nature of his art, Bowling’s work resonates on a universal level, inviting viewers to contemplate the interplay between colour, form, and meaning.
In 2005, Bowling was elected as a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, becoming the first Black artist to receive this honour. His contributions to art have been recognized with numerous awards and major exhibitions, including a landmark retrospective at Tate Britain in 2019. Today, his work is held in prestigious collections worldwide, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.to
1
1
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
8,049
5,263
2,504
1,658
1
2
Artist: Frank Bowling
Doughlah G.E.P., 1968-71 - Contemporary Art, Abstract Art
By Frank Bowling
Located in London, GB
Title: Doughlah G.E.P., 1968-71
Year made: 2023
Material: Giclée print on 330gsm Somerset Velvet cotton rag paper with an embossed publisher stamp
Edition of 250
It comes with COA f...
Category
2010s Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Giclée
Hothead - Contemporary Art, Abstract Art
By Frank Bowling
Located in London, GB
Hothead, 2016
Giclée print on 330gsm Somerset Velvet cotton rag paper with an embossed publisher stamp
82 x 78 cm - Framed
80 x 75 cm - Sheet
Edition of 250
It comes with COA from t...
Category
2010s Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Giclée
Related Items
All Alone in the Museum of Modern Art Howard Hodgkin abstract black painting
By Howard Hodgkin
Located in New York, NY
Large scale black and white abstract interior scene with dots, lines, brushstrokes, paint daubs, fingerprints, squares and rectangles, and hand painting in grey. Hang in contemporary, modern and minimalist spaces. While British pop artists such as David Hockney and Patrick Caulfield numbered amongst Howard Hodgkin's circle of friends, Hodgkin's work is painterly, emotional, expressionist, and abstract.
Paper: 29.5 x 38.75 in. / 74.7 x 98.2 cm.
Soft-ground etching with hand coloring in black gouache on grey BFK Rives mould made paper. Signed by the artist, dated 79, and numbered 59/100 lower center in red crayon. Printed from the same plate as 'Thinking Aloud in the Museum of Modern Art', this print was previously titled "Not Quite Alone in the Museum of Modern Art," suggesting an erotic dalliance in the museum.
This print depicts an abstracted scene, perhaps a window and a door, in Hodgkin's signature painterly style. The expressive mark-making in this print is an example of the artist’s movement in the late 70s towards pronounced gestures. Beside bold black strokes, his fingerprints form areas of texture. Always seeking greater richness in his prints, Hodgkin layered ink and hand coloring in this print, rendering each print in the edition unique.
Howard Hodgkin was introduced to the etching technique used in 'All Alone in the Museum of Modern Art' at Petersburg Press, where this print was produced and where he would become a long-time collaborator. This technique allowed him to work fluidly and spontaneously, creating the moody interior scenes that mark Hodgkin’s work from the late 70s and early 80s.
Part of a series of four prints reflecting on a visit to the Museum...
Category
Late 20th Century Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Etching
Harriet Hoult, At-Ha, Signed Limited Edition Print Abstract Print
By Harriet Hoult
Located in Deddington, GB
Harriet Hoult
At-ha
Limited Edition Giclee Print
Edition of 50
Sheet Size: H 91cm x W 63cm x D 0.1cm
Signed by the Artist
This is a signed, Limited Edition Giclée print of the origi...
Category
2010s Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Giclée
H 35.83 in W 24.81 in
Damien Hirst, Fruitful (Small) - Signed Print, YBAs, Abstract Art
By Damien Hirst
Located in Hamburg, DE
Damien Hirst (British, born 1965)
Fruitful, 2020
Medium: Laminated Giclee print on aluminium composite panel
Dimensions: 39 x 39 cm
Edition of 3308: Printed signature and edition num...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Panel, Giclée
H 15.36 in W 15.36 in
Thinking Aloud in the Museum of Modern Art, Hodgkin, abstract black and white
By Howard Hodgkin
Located in New York, NY
Large scale black and white abstract interior scene with dots, lines, brushstrokes, paint daubs, fingerprints, squares and rectangles, and hand painting in grey. Hang in contemporary, modern and minimalist spaces. While British pop artists such as David Hockney and Patrick Caulfield numbered amongst Howard Hodgkin's circle of friends, Hodgkin's work is painterly, expressionist, and abstract.
Paper: 30 x 40 in. / 76.2 x 101.5 cm.
Thinking Aloud in the Museum of Modern Art by Howard Hodgkin. Soft-ground etching on yellowish grey Hodgkinson hand made paper. Signed by the artist, dated 70, and numbered 21/100 lower center in red crayon. Printed from the same plates as 'All Alone in the Museum of Modern Art'. While All Alone features dark pools of hand coloring, the lighter image field of Thinking Aloud reveals how Hodgkin used his entire hand to create lines and textures.
This print depicts an abstracted scene, perhaps a window and a door, in Hodgkin's signature painterly style. The expressive brush marks and fingerprints in this print are an example of the artist’s movement in the late 70s towards pronounced gestures.
Howard Hodgkin was introduced to the etching technique used in Thinking Aloud in the Museum of Modern Art at Petersburg Press, where this print was produced and where he would become a long-time collaborator. This technique allowed him to work fluidly and spontaneously, creating the moody interior scenes that mark Hodgkin’s work from the late 70s and early 80s.
Part of a series of four prints reflecting on a visit to the Museum...
Category
Late 20th Century Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Etching
Bicentennial Dawn Lithograph and gold foil, Louise Nevelson sculpture signed/N
By Louise Nevelson
Located in New York, NY
Louise Nevelson
Bicentennial Dawn, 1976
Photolithograph, silkscreen and gold foil on white wove paper
hand signed, dated and numbered 15/100 with incised signature on the front
35 × ...
Category
1970s Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Foil
Artist and Model Howard Hodgkin abstracted orange and black watercolor gouache
By Howard Hodgkin
Located in New York, NY
Large black and marigold orange abstract interior scene of a bust in front of a window with fingerprints and painterly brushstrokes. Rich color and texture ideal for hanging in minimalist, contemporary and modern living spaces.
Signed by the artist with initials, dated 1980, and numbered lower center in red crayon. Soft-ground etching with hand coloring on Stoneridge mould-made etching paper.
This print is one of a group of soft-ground etchings (Artist and Model, Artist and Model (in green and yellow), Those…Plants). The two versions of Artist and Model are printed from the same plates, but in different colors. In this iteration, marigold orange contrasts beautifully with rich black ink. Seen in all three prints is a bust in silhouette before a window. Artist and Model is a surprising name, as Hodgkin never painted or drew from a model.
Howard Hodgkin was introduced to the etching technique used in Artist and Model at Petersburg Press, where this print was produced and where he would become a long-time collaborator. This technique allowed him to work fluidly and spontaneously, creating the moody interior scenes that mark Hodgkin’s work from the late 70s and early 80s.
Catalogue reference: Elizabeth Knowles...
Category
Late 20th Century Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Watercolor, Gouache, Etching
Günther Förg, Six Rectangles - Woodcut in Colors, Abstract Art, Signed Print
By Günther Förg
Located in Hamburg, DE
Günther Förg (Füssen 1952 – 2013 Freiburg)
Six Rectangles, 1991
Medium: Woodcut in colors on card stock
Dimensions: 56 x 80 cm (60 x 84 cm)
Unknown edition size: Hand-signed and date...
Category
Late 20th Century Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Woodcut
Damien Hirst, Savoy (H5-8) - Signed Print, Contemporary Art, Abstract Art
By Damien Hirst
Located in Hamburg, DE
Damien Hirst (British, born 1965)
Savoy (H5-8), 2018
Medium: Diasec-mounted Giclée print on aluminum panel
Dimensions: 88.9 × 88.9 cm (35 × 35 in)
Edition of 100: Hand-signed and num...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Giclée
Sarah Morris, London - Signed Print, Geometric Abstraction, Hand-Signed
By Sarah Morris
Located in Hamburg, DE
Sarah Morris (American, born 1967)
London, 2012
Medium: Digital print on rag paper with glaze
Dimensions: 38 x 30 cm (14 15/16 x 11 13/16 in)
Edition of 200: Hand-signed and numbered...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Geometric Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Digital
Damien Hirst, Loyalty (The Virtues, H9-7) - Pop Art, Abstract Art, Signed Print
By Damien Hirst
Located in Hamburg, DE
Damien Hirst (British, b. 1965)
H9-7 Loyalty, 2021
Medium: Diasec-mounted Giclée print on aluminium composite panel
Dimensions: 120 x 96 cm
Edition of 1067: Hand-signed and numbered
...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Giclée
H 47.25 in W 37.8 in D 0.79 in
Rare Albright Knox museum poster (hand signed and inscribed to renowned curator)
By Dan Flavin
Located in New York, NY
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin at Albright Knox Gallery (hand signed and inscribed to renowned curator)
Offset Lithograph. Hand signed and inscribed by Dan Flavin
18 × 22 inches
Provenance: Estate of artist and collector Rick Collar
Unframed
Uniquely inscribed and hand signed 1972 Dan Flavin exhibition poster from his Albright Knox exhibition. Dan Flavin hand signs and inscribes it to Paulus Hendrik Hefting, the curator of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The inscription reads: "Best regards and best wishes to you especially in "diagrams and drawings". What Flavin is referring to is the important exhibition also in 1972, "Diagrams & Drawings" curated by Hefting, at the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller (Netherlands), which featured Carl Andre, Christo, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Michael Heizer, Don Judd, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson.
An extremely rare signed poster with a unique inscription to a major European curator referencing an historic Minimalist exhibition in the early 1970s.
We may not see the likes of something like this anytime soon!
Dan Flavin Biography
From 1963, when he conceived the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi), a single gold fluorescent lamp installed diagonally on the wall, until his death in 1996, Dan Flavin (1933-1996) produced a singularly consistent and prodigious body of work that utilized commercially available fluorescent lamps to create installations (or “situations,” as he preferred to call them) of light and color. Through these light constructions, Flavin was able to establish and redefine space.
Flavin’s first solo exhibitions were held at the Judson Gallery in 1961 and the Green Gallery in 1964, both in New York. His first European exhibition was in 1966 at Galerie Rudolf Zwirner in Cologne, Germany; and in 1969, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, organized his first major museum retrospective. His work was included in a number of key early exhibitions of Minimal art in the 1960s, among them Black, White, and Gray (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, 1964); Primary Structures (The Jewish Museum, New York, 1966); and Minimal Art (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 1968). Flavin’s work would continue to be presented internationally over the course of the pursuant decades at venues including the St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri (1973); Kunsthalle Basel (1975); Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1975); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1986); and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1992), among others.
A major museum retrospective devoted to Flavin’s work was organized, in cooperation with the Estate of Dan Flavin, by the Dia Art Foundation in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, where it was first on view in 2004. The exhibition traveled from 2005 to 2007 to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Hayward Gallery, London; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris...
Category
1970s Abstract Geometric Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Pencil, Lithograph, Offset
Bruce Nauman at Leo Castelli
By Bruce Nauman
Located in New York, NY
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman at Leo Castelli, 1978
Offset Lithograph Poster
18 1/4 × 36 inches
Unframed
This Bruce Nauman poster was created on the occasion of his exhibition at the Leo...
Category
1970s Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Lithograph, Offset
Previously Available Items
Frank Bowling, Benjamin Run - Contemporary Art, Abstract Art, Signed Print
By Frank Bowling
Located in Hamburg, DE
Sir Frank Bowling OBE, RA (b. 1934, in British Guiana)
Benjamin Run, 2020
Medium: Lithograph on paper
Dimensions: 76 x 49.5 cm
Edition of 40: Signed and numbered by hand
Condition: Mint
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Lithograph
Frank Bowling, Benjamin Run - Contemporary Art, Abstract Art, Signed Print
By Frank Bowling
Located in Hamburg, DE
Sir Frank Bowling OBE, RA (b. 1934, in British Guiana)
Benjamin Run, 2020
Medium: Lithograph on paper
Dimensions: 76 x 49.5 cm
Edition of 40: Signed and numbered by hand
Condition: Mint
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Lithograph
As If Eleven - Contemporary art, 21st Century, Abstract Art, Abstraction
By Frank Bowling
Located in Zug, CH
Frank Bowling
As If Eleven - Contemporary art, 21st Century, Abstract Art, Abstraction
2020
Screenprint
Edition of 100
76 × 60 cm
(29.92 × 23.62 in)
...
Category
2010s Abstract Frank Bowling Art
Materials
Screen
Frank Bowling art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Frank Bowling art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Frank Bowling in cotton, fabric, digital print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 21st century and contemporary and is mostly associated with the contemporary style. Not every interior allows for large Frank Bowling art, so small editions measuring 12 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Yinka Shonibare, Jennifer Baker, and Andrée B. Carter. Frank Bowling art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $3,159 and tops out at $6,500, while the average work can sell for $3,159.