Adrian Heath, 
British 1920-1992 - 

Composition No.2 Brown & Black, 1954; 

oil on canvas, signed with initials lower right 'AH', also signed, titled and dated on the reverse 'Adrian Heath Composition No.2 Brown + Black 1954', 61 x 81 cm (ARR) 

Provenance: 
private collection, purchased directly from the artist; 
private collection, gifted by the above in 2019 

Note: 
This is a brilliant example of Heath's constructivist style from the mid-1950s, encapsulating his method of dividing the canvas with an appreciation of the Golden Section. Heath would carefully rotate and shift shapes in order to produce new interactions and an overall balance to the composition, liberating his work from the constraints of figuration and allowing it to exist as a self-contained object. This work was produced during a hugely productive stage of his career. He had his first solo exhibition at the Redfern Gallery the previous year and in 1954 organised the publication of 'Nine British Abstract Artists' written by Lawrence Alloway, detailing the development of concurrent strands of abstraction in Britain, which lead to a landmark group exhibition at the Redfern Gallery in 1955, with William Scott and Kenneth and Mary Martin, amongst others. Related works can be seen in public works, such as 'Composition, Blue, Black and Brown, 1952' (Tate), 'Divided Form' (Sheffield Museums) and 'Composition: Red and Black, 1954-55' (Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art). 

Heath was a major point of connection between the St Ives School (he met artists including Ben Nicholson in the 1950s) and the movement of British Constructivism, through which he was associated with contemporaries such as Anthony Hill and Victor Pasmore. Heaths work has been included in exhibitions held by the Royal Academy, the British Council, and the Tate St Ives, and is in a number of permanent collections, including that of Newnham College, Cambridge, and the Arts Council Collection.