Sandra Blow

Sandra Blow RA (1925–2006) was one of the leading figures of post-war British abstraction and a central member of the St Ives School. Following periods of study at Saint Martin’s School of Art and in Italy, where she encountered Alberto Burri and Art Informel, Blow developed an entirely personal approach to painting in which colour, texture and material became equal components of the composition.

Sandra Blow, Porthmeor Beach II (Part of the Porthmeor Suite I-IV), 2000 (£POA)

Throughout the 1950s and beyond she rejected conventional illusionistic painting, incorporating collage, hessian, canvas, sawdust and other unconventional materials into richly textured surfaces. Rather than depicting the landscape directly, Blow sought to evoke the physical experience of light, space and movement, producing works whose presence is as sculptural as it is painterly.

Within Sharpe Fine Art’s exhibition narrative, Moving to Modernism – Arriving at Abstraction, Sandra Blow represents the liberation of landscape into pure colour and structure. Her paintings no longer describe Cornwall or Italy as recognisable places; instead they distil atmosphere, rhythm and memory into abstract relationships of form, creating paintings that exist as independent objects rather than representations. As well as her use of vibrant colour our collection also contains a fascinating suite of four paintings assessing the changing colours at Porthmeor Beach, St. Ives.