The question is: how many people encounter Meredith Frampton at all? He seems a painter lost, as obsolete now as his strange archaic name. And yet, when first found, the stone cold power of his paintings can’t be ignored.
My first encounter with Frampton’s art was his painting of the model Marguerite Kelsey at the Tate. My eyes were immediately drawn to the shoes. Red and rebellious, resting on the sofa. A hint at a sensuousness under all that control.
There is something lonely in all this perfection, but not sterile. It is a game of patience, to borrow the title of the above painting, where the viewer is rewarded for looking that bit longer at the telling detail – the red belt, the red flower, the red caravan in the landscape.
Frampton knew all about patience; having to wait until he was 88 for his first solo exhibition, 30 of those years in darkness after losing his sight.
But by those who know, he is now rightly celebrated. Here is the artist Tai-Shan Schierenberg beautifully detailing his own, revelatory, first encounter:
