Frank Bowling

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Copying the work of Frank Bowling

(Case Study II of Ana Teles’ doctoral research – 2018–2021)

“In April 2018, I contacted Frank Bowling to ask if I could copy his work. Bowling and Rachel Scott, his wife, were both keen that I make a copy of his ‘lost painting’, Lent. When we met, he gave me two images of the painting: one in darker tones and the other in more saturated colours with vibrant reds, which had been digitally edited to match his memory.”

Lent (1963) was one of Bowling’s most treasured paintings and belonged to his figurative and expressionist period, a time when his concerns with political, social, and personal issues were more evidently depicted in his work. Lent is a personal response on the disasters of war, using images drawn from newspaper reports of contemporary events, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, alongside images drawn from traditional representations of Catholicism.

Image: Copy by Ana Teles of ‘Lent’ by Frank Bowling, 2018-2021


Ana Teles discusses her research project on copying Frank Bowling’s Lent during Discursivity I & II, an exhibition platform for Camberwell, Chelsea, and Wimbledon (CCW) PhD students, held 12–14 October 2021.
Ana Teles discusses the process behind Frank Bowling’s paintings with Zoé Whitley during the Round Table on Bowling’s work, part of the Collage exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Paris, 22 March – 24 May 2025.

The process of copying Lent – 2018/21


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