Sandra Blow
(1925 - 2006) |
|
Art Work
| Name: |
Sandra Blow |
| Gender: |
Female |
| Place of Birth: |
London, England |
| Nationality: |
English |
| Birth: |
1925 |
| Death: |
2006 |
| Website: |
|
| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
|
|
Quick Facts
| Known For: |
|
| Medium: |
|
| Method: |
Mixed media |
| Style: |
Abstraction |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
|
|
|
Biography
Among the sixty-seven artists exhibiting in British Painting in the Sixties, held jointly at the Tate and Whitechapel Art Galleries in 1963, were three women, among them Sandra Blow. Blow was one of the leading artists involved in the development of abstract painting influenced by the work of the American Action painters. She combined their spontaneous energy with textures and associations suggested by her diverse materials, sand, straw, sawdust and sacking, in addition to paint.
Her work was in sympathy with some British artists working in Cornwall, including Peter Lanyon, Roger Hilton and Patrick Heron. Blow stayed in Cornwall in the late 1950s and settled in St Ives in the 1990s. She used to discuss her work with Anthea Alley, and now Wilhelmina Barns-Graham gives her regular critical appraisals. Traces of the Cornish landscape can be seen in Blow's structures, her sometimes muted palette, and the use of line, suggestive of hills, sand dunes or waves. She continues to experiment, and has worked with tea, ash, cement, plaster and polythene. Blow also works vivid paints with panache. She embraced the new acrylics in the 1960s, and her understanding of strong color is evident in paintings such as Vivace (1988, artist's Collection}, with its striking red.
Blow's artistic ambitions were encouraged by her Aunt Rose (whose own education had been thwarted by her family). She studied at St Martin's School of Art, the Royal Academy (she was elected a member), and the Accademia delle Belle Arti, Rome. Her many solo shows include a series at Gimpel Fils from the 1950s, a retrospective at the Royal Academy in 1994, and at Tate St Ives in 2002. Blow has also taught at the Royal College of Art.
|
Samples of Work
|
|
