A monograph devoted to the ‘spool’ paintings of one of the most distinctive Caribbean artists of the past century.
'This publication was produced to accompany an exhibition staged by Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, in 2021. The exhibition was the first devoted to Frank Walter’s ‘spools’ – the small circular paintings which, in their consistency of scale and form, provide a lens through which to witness the workings of Walter’s inner eye. Walter’s work was unknown during his lifetime, but in the decade since his death he has emerged as one of the most distinctive and intriguing Caribbean voices of the last fifty years. Painted with a rare directness and immediacy on whatever material came most readily to hand, his works describe a visionary artist – romantically and spiritually inclined in the manner of William Blake or Hilma af Klint – but rooted in the landscape of Antigua, the island of his birth.
His work was the subject of Antigua and Barbuda’s inaugural appearance at the Venice Biennale in 2017, in an exhibition titled ‘Frank Walter: The Last Universal Man 1926–2009’, hailed by The New York Times as ‘the most eye-opening’ of all 85 pavilions and which led Hans-Ulrich Obrist to describe him as the author of ‘an unbelievable body of work, which has not been seen so far. […] He was the Leonardo da Vinci of Antigua’. A major retrospective of several hundred works was displayed at MMK Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt in 2020, accompanied by a 420-page monograph in which the art historian and chronicler of Walter’s life Barbara Paca notes: "In their completeness as a group, the spool series brings together all the elements of Walter’s universe, with each painting fitting together in dynamic groupings to provide an investigation into the workings of Walter’s mind…"' (From the publisher)
This publication, co-published by Ingleby, Edinburgh, and Anomie, London, features contributions by Barbara Paca, Professor Paget Henry, Kenneth M. Milton and Mary-Elisabeth Moore. Edited and produced by Ingleby, the publication has been designed by Joanna Deans / Identity and printed by Graphius, Ghent.
Published by Anomie, 2021.
