Adrian Heath

Adrian Heath (1920 – 1992), born in Burma, was a British abstract and semi-abstract painter who attended the Slade School of Art in 1939, and again from 1945–47.

During World War II Heath served in the RAF but spent the majority of the war years as a POW. As such he became friends with fellow POW, Terry Frost, and taught him to paint. In 1949 and 1951, Heath made extended visits to St Ives, where he met Ben Nicholson and others of the group of artists and intellectuals who were living in Cornwall at that time. In the early 1950s, he was also associated with Victor Pasmore and Anthony Hill and became the main link between the emerging St Ives School and British Constructivism. In 1953 Heath published 'Abstract Painting: its Origins and Meaning' a slim volume appraising the development of abstraction by the early modernists. In the early 1960s Heath’s work began to allude to the human figure and sometimes to landscapes. His work from this time displays a greater freedom of expression and sensuality which in part can be attributed to a growing awareness of the American abstract-expressionists; in particular de Kooning and Motherwell.

Adrian Heath’s work is part of many private and public collections worldwide including Arts Council Collection, British Council Collection and Tate in the UK and the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC, USA.