Terry Frost

Terry Frost (1915–2003) was a British painter and printmaker associated with the St Ives group and the development of post-war British abstraction. Born in Leamington Spa, he served in the British Army during the Second World War and was taken prisoner in Crete in 1941. While interned in Bavaria, he met the artist Adrian Heath, who encouraged his interest in painting. After the war, Frost studied at the St Ives School of Painting and Camberwell School of Art, where he encountered the teaching of Victor Pasmore and developed an interest in abstraction.

Frost settled in St Ives in 1950 and in 1951 worked as an assistant to Barbara Hepworth. His early abstract paintings drew on observations of the Cornish landscape and coastline, particularly the movement of boats, reflections on water and the changing effects of light. During the 1950s he developed a visual language based on simplified geometric forms—curves, circles, arcs and intersecting planes—combined with strongly contrasted areas of colour. His work remained connected to perception while increasingly dispensing with direct representation.

Alongside painting, Frost produced prints, drawings, collages and designs for ceramics and textiles. He also taught at institutions including Bath Academy of Art, Leeds and Reading, contributing to the wider dissemination of modernist approaches to art education. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1992 and knighted in 1998. He lived and worked in Cornwall until his death in Newlyn in 2003.

Orange and Black, Leeds - Terry Frost

Orange and Black, Leeds - Terry Frost

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