Probably acquired directly from the Artist by Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Gillinson, Leeds, England
Bequest of the above in 1979

The canvas is original and has been stretched over a backboard by the artist, but is not laid down. The canvas undulates slightly in the top right . It appears the work was tacked to a baton along the top edge. During the process of painting the Artist has unfastened this, probably prior to application of the brown wash in the upper part of the painting. In the areas where the nails previously held there has been some paint loss and there is an additional small spot of paint loss to the centre of the lower edge. There is a bit of compression to the white pigments of the hexagonal form, but this is almost certainly contemporary with the painting. The surface is dirty and may benefit from a light clean. Ultraviolet light reveals spots and areas of fluorescence but these appear to correspond to the artist's pigments or staining. Held in a gilt and painted composition frame with a canvas inset. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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The importance that Frost's time in Leeds had on his work can hardly be overstated. The influence of the landscape introduced a broader and more gestural manner to his painting, and new devices begin to appear, allowing the artist to expand the structura🧜l possibilit🌺ies available to him.

In 1956, a pentagonal form begins t😼o appear, derived from an experience evocatively described by the artist:

'I drove through the snow and had lunch with Herbert Read...After lunch we went for a walk...I looked up and I saw the white sun spinning on top of a copse...now I recall that I thought I saw a Naples yellow blinding circle spinning on top of black verticals. The sensation was true. I was spellbound and, of course, when I tried to look again 'it' had gone, just a sun and a copse on the brow of a hill covered in snow...' (the Artist, circa 1975).

The pentagonal spinning form, seen in Red, Black and White 1956 (Private Collection), develops further into an irregular polygonal form which performed a function of allowing the artist t🐻o suggest receding depth within his paintings, as seen in the present work.

This new element was particularly praised by Patric💜k Heron, who wrot🦄e in 1957:

'In Frost's new work an overtly geometric (and somehow symbolic) form lies involved in the downward-moving rain of pigment gestures...a broad compositional structural statement lying behind the bead-curtain of dribbles, that gives the picture that power and punch, that three-dimensional focus and concentration of space that no purely Tachist picture ever exhibits...'
(Patrick Heron, 'London', Arts, vol.32 no.1, October 1957 p.17).