Patrick Heron

Storm at St. Ives

Patrick Heron was a central figure of the St Ives school, whose Cornish paintings translated the region's light, colour and form into paint. His early style drew on Braque, Bonnard and, above all, Matisse's rich colour harmonies and sense of "alloverness." Between 1945 and 1956, Heron and his wife Delia made regular visits to Cornwall, and he repeatedly painted the view from their rented flat on St Andrew's Street, overlooking the harbour and sea wall. Storm at St Ives, from 1952, captures the ferocity of a storm sending waves crashing over the house. Though still figurative, this painting was made the same year Heron began working abstractly; he moved to Cornwall permanently in 1956, adopting full abstraction in which colour and shape carried equal weight throughout his compositions.