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Patrick Heron was not only a leading abstract painter but a talented and forthright art critic who championed such contemporaries as Keith Vaughan and Roger Hilton. Heron’s conversion to fully abstract painting came about in 1956, shortly after the influential exhibition Modern Art in the United States opened at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. The shift from figuration to abstraction brought with it "a sense of freedom quite denied me while I had to keep half an eye on a ‘subject,’" said Heron. Nevertheless, he criticized the dominance of the New York art market and became an ardent advocate for British modernism. Three Cadmiums exemplifies his ambition to establish a "purely visual experience" through a bold use of color and simplified forms. The use of bright red may be intended as an homage to Heron’s favorite painting: Henri Matisse’s The Red Studio of 1911 (MoMA, New York).

Gallery Label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020

Patrick Heron was not only a leading abstract painter but a talented and forthright art critic who championed such contemporaries as Terry Frost and Roger Hilton. Heron’s conversion to fully abstract painting came about in 1956, bringing with it what the artist described as “a sense of freedom quite denied me while I had to keep half an eye on a ‘subject’.” This was also the year that Heron and his family moved to Eagles Nest, a house on the cliff tops near Zennor in Cornwall, only five miles west of the important artists’ colony of St. Ives. In the mid-1960s, when he painted Three Cadmiums, most of Heron’s paintings focused on a small group of subtly modulated colors and flat, irregular shapes. The use of bright red may be intended as an homage to Heron’s favorite painting: Henri Matisse’s The Red Studio of 1911 (MoMA, New York).

Gallery Label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016