Straw and Purple Visage

Terry Frost served as a Commando during the Second World War until he was captured in 1941 and transferred to a Prisoner of War camp in Germany. It was there that he started to paint, aged 28, after joining the art classes held by fellow PoWs. After the war he moved to St. Ives, where, with the assistance of Ben Nicholson, he moved into newly converted artist studios at Porthmeor (Nicholson also had a large studio in the same block). Frost painted his first abstract works in response to his surroundings. The shapes and forms in his work from the 1950s often derive from rocks and the sea, ships, nautical tackle, gulls and gorse.