FRANK BOWLING – DRIVEN TO DRAW

Exterior view of Frank Bowling: Driven to Draw at the Royal Drawing School, 2026. Photo © David Levene.

The lasting importance of drawing may not to some seem an obvious conceit to support, but an hour or so spent studying the works of Sir Frank Bowling OBE should go a considerable way to enlightening one as to just how much can be offered by the humble canvas and the brush – or whatever basic tools might be at one’s disposal.

Born in Guyana in the mid-1930s, Frank Bowling came to the arts as a mature student, graduating from the Royal College of Art in summer 1962. Bowling’s keenness to represent experiences of his young life had initially manifested themselves purely through poetry – however, arrival in the capital turned his attention pointedly toward the visual arts. While far from an ‘abstract’ artist per se, Bowling’s most significant modernist works employed abstraction as a means of developing style and study. The result here is a fascinating and highly-varied selection of five decades of his art.

Sir Frank Bowling OBE RA with Frederik and Ben Bowling in Frank Bowling_ Driven to Draw at the Royal Drawing School, 2026. Photo © David Levene.

Driven to Draw – this summer’s intriguing exhibition at the Royal Drawing School – emphasises the urgency in much of Bowling’s work, from his map abstractions to the sensitive yet immediate studies in ink of figures in action and at rest. Via these smaller studies, we are encouraged to look beyond the solid shapes in front of us: instead, we are drawn to study and absorb the movement that Bowling achieves in what superficially might be viewed as basic sketches. Through such pieces we can observe the mechanics of the body, as seen through the artist’s dynamic line use. Bowling, however, was clearly not exclusively concerned with line. His mother was a dressmaker and milliner who allowed her son to help in her work, which surely brought out the artist’s own fascination with colour, material and texture – also key elements of his later work. Paint is often employed as a ‘dye’, its colour bleeding from one surface into another below to create a rich and radiant finish. The combining of both of these contrasting techniques leaves one immersed in images both visually informative and yet aesthetically dynamic.

Finally, while likely of considerable interest to both artist and academic alike, it should be emphasised that this exhibition has great appeal to all. Taking the exhibition’s title as its catalyst, the school encourages our own artistic urges by providing paper, easels and charcoal in order to stimulate us as we peruse the artworks herein. (This reviewer – who generally doesn’t need a lot of encouragement to pick up a pencil and get drawing – left a rudimentary but monochromatically-active rendition of Bowling’s Red Australia!)

Frank Bowling – Driven to Draw is exhibiting now until late August. Visit, study, enjoy – and maybe let the impulse take you…

Royal Drawing School, Charlotte Road EC2A 3SG

24/6/26 – 22/8/26