Untitled Iandscape. 1961
 

Biography

Self-taught artist in oil, pastel, watercolour and ceramics, Frank Fidler was born in London. He began painting full time in 1954 when the influence of Abstract Expressionism and action painting was just spreading to Britain. A chance meeting with Jackson Pollock around that time also had a lasting effect. In 1957, he took part in his first major exhibition in Moscow. The following year he was included in the Paris exhibition “Towards the Future”. In 1959, His first solo exhibition was at the Drian Gallery in London, followed by many regular shows there. Through the early 1960s he also exhibited in London with the Free Painter’s Group and at the Ben Uri Gallery. An interest in ceramics from the mid-60s led to a number of public commissions, including two ceramic murals for St. Albans Civic Centre. At around the same time he became friendly with the sculptor Henry Moore. This friendship continued until Moore’s death in 1986 by which time Fidler had abandoned abstraction and begun to record the landscape around his home in pastels, watercolour and pencil.