Collection: Patrick Heron   1920 - 1999 

Patrick Heron was born in Leeds in 1920. Heron’s family moved to Cornwall when he was five years old and he continued to live there and be inspired by the landscape for most of his life. Heron studied at the Slade School of Fine Art [1937-39] and as a pacifist he was a conscientious objector during the Second World War. The early artistic influences on Heron’s work were diverse, for example as a teenager he was a designer for his father’s firm Cresta Silks. In 1944-45 he was an assistant at the Bernard Leach Pottery at St. Ives in Cornwall.

In the post-war period Heron was greatly interested in, and influenced by, the work of modern French artists such as Matisse, Bonnard and Braque as evidenced by the flat linear style of his still lifes and interiors. In the 1950s Heron was closely identified with the St. Ives group of painters in Cornwall who’s members included Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. In the mid 1950s Heron started to paint in an abstract style, often with a bold use of colour. He died in 1999. His work is held in important public and private collections worldwide.