Patrick Heron

(30 January 1920 - 20 March 1999)

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Patrick Heron was a painter first but was also an influential writer and critic. He was one of the pioneers of abstraction in Britain during the 1940's and 50's and is closely associated with the group of painters who lived and worked in St. Ives, including Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. 

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Richard Demarco had shown Patrick Heron's work in group shows in various locations in Edinburgh in the early 60's and in August 1966, Heron featured in the inaugural exhibition at the new Richard Demarco Gallery, at 8 Melville Crescent, Edinburgh. In June, 1967, Heron had a retrospective exhibition in Richard Demarco Gallery. Demarco's support of St. Ives artists like Heron, Nicholson and Terry Frost at the beginning of their careers put him at the forefront of British avant-garde. 

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"Seeing", Heron wrote in 1956, "is not a passive but an active operation... all art is a convention, an invention. Painting may literally claim to alter the look of the world for us. We only see nature through a system of images, a configuration which paintings supplies."