LONDON.- Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert announced its representation of the estate of Patrick Heron (1920 - 1999) with a loan exhibition of paintings in Autumn 2020 to mark the centenary of the artist’s birth.

Known for his contribution to post-war abstract art, both as an artist and as a respected writer and critic, Patrick Heron is recognised as a leading figure of his generation. His engagement with colour and light, as well as his acknowledgment of masters of the School of Paris such as Braque, Matisse and Bonnard, saw his painting shift from figuration in the 1940s to his distinct mode of abstraction in the 1960s.

Selected by the leading writer and curator David Anfam, the exhibition in September 2020 at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert will focus on the mature abstract work of the mid-1960s through to the mid-1970s and will include loans from public and private collections as well as the estate.

James Holland-Hibbert, Director of Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, says: ‘I am proud to announce that Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert will be representing the estate of Patrick Heron. Since its inception in 2002 the gallery has championed Heron’s painting and we are delighted to continue our support of the artist’s legacy. In 2020 we look forward to celebrating the centenary of Heron’s birth with a major loan exhibition and hope to promote his work in both a British and international context.’

Patrick Heron (b. 1920 Leeds, England; d. 1999, St Ives, England) was a British artist and critic. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, between 1937 and 1939. The Redfern Gallery hosted Heron's first solo exhibition in 1947; his first solo exhibition in New York was held at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in 1960. In 1956, Heron moved to Zennor, Cornwall, where he lived until his death, and began making abstract work inspired by Tachisme and Abstract Expressionism. In his famous lecture ‘The Shape of Colour’ delivered in 1973, Heron argued that colour and shape were inseparable from one another, a belief that helped to define much of his work.

Heron won the Grand Prize at the John Moores Prize Exhibition in Liverpool in 1959 and the silver medal at the São Paulo Art Biennial in 1965. From 1980 to 1987, he was a Trustee of the Tate Gallery, London. He was awarded a C.B.E. in 1977 and received Honorary Doctorates from Exeter and Kent Universities, the Royal College of Art, London and Winchester School of Art, amongst others. He had retrospective exhibitions at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1972 and the Barbican Art Gallery in 1985, and the Tate Gallery, London hosted a major retrospective in 1998 and then another at Tate St Ives in 2018 which travelled to Turner Contemporary in 2019.