Painter of abstracts in oils and gouaches; textile designer, art critic and writer.

Born in Leeds, he lived in Cornwall from 1925 to 1929, and worked as an assistant to Bernard Leach at St.Ives in 1944-5. In 1945 he moved to London, but continued to visit St.Ives and returned to live in Cornwall at Zennor in 1956, taking over Ben Nicholson’s studio in St.Ives in 1958.

He exhibited at the Redfern Gallery, 1947-58, and at the Waddington Galleries from 1960. He has shown extensively both nationally and internationally and retrospective exhibitions of his work include those at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1972, the Barbican Art Gallery in 1985 and the Tate Gallery in 1998. His work is represented in numerous public collections including the Tate Gallery and the V&A.

He taught at the Central School of Art 1953-6, lectured in Australia in 1967 and 1973 and in America in 1978. His prizes include the Grand Prize, John Moores Exhibition 1959, and a silver medal in the VIII Bienal de Sao Paulo, 1965. A Trustee of the Tate Gallery from 1980-1987, he has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the universities of Exeter, Kent and the RCA, London. He received his CBE in 1977. During the 1940s and 1950s he was an art critic for a number of publications and he also designed for Cresta Silks.

The main focus of his work is colour. His early painting was influenced by Bracque and in the 1950s he turned to abstraction. By the 1970s this took the form of highly coloured shapes which gave an overpowering optical sensation and intense interaction of colour. In later work form and colour became more expansive and organic with greater reference to the natural world.