Artfully insouciant | Sandra Blow, at Jenna Burlingham

Two White, 1981, acrylic and paper on board, 122 x 122 cm, 48 x 48 in, signed, inscribed, titled and dated verso. Courtesy of Jenna Burlingham Gallery

In 1947 the 22-year-old St Martins and RA graduate Sandra Blow, daughter of a fruit wholesaler, embarked on a tour of Italy on a motorcycle, studying pre-Renaissance architecture and frescoes, and enrolling in the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. There she met Italian abstract artist Alberto Burri, ten years her senior, a war veteran who had taught himself abstract art as a POW in Texas. They became lovers, and, like Burri, Blow started using easy-to-hand materials such as sawdust and sackcloth in her collagey abstracts, juxtaposed with paint.  

Their relationship soon ended, but Burri remained a big influence. After a spell in Paris, she returned to London, and, still in her mid-twenties, made a big name for herself at the forefront of the British abstract art movement, alongside the likes of Dennis Bowen, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Ben Nicholson and Gillian Ayres. Throughout the 50s her ambitious, large-scale canvases were represented by the cutting-edge Mayfair gallery Gimpel Fils, and she soon established an international profile. She moved to Cornwall in 1957, mixing with the artistic community there, centred around St Ives.

In the 60s, having returned to London, her palette lightened somewhat, reflecting the optimistic mood of the age, but she continued to balance proportion, tension and scale, often with artfully insouciant craftsmanship (it was said she applied her eye make-up in a similar manner, which didn’t detract from her beauty). She was widely exhibited throughout her six-decade career, and earned herself a teaching position at the RCA, and election to the Royal Academy. She was honoured with a retrospective in the newly built Sackler Galleries at the RA in 1994, and another, in 2001, at Tate St Ives. Having moved back to Cornwall in the 90s, she died in Truro, in 2006.

Featured above is Two White (1981), in which parallel strips of paint, red and green, pop out from the more understated tones of the background, composed of acrylic wash and exposed board. So simple; so effective. Blow’s invigorating work has been featured regularly at British Art Fair since its inception, and this year will be no exception: Two White will be shown by Jenna Burlingham Gallery.