Frank Bowling was born in Guyana in 1936, emigrating to England in 1950, where he studied painting at the Royal College of Art. In 1966 he moved again, this time to New York, attracted by the esteem with which abstract painting, in which his interest was burgeoning, was held. His first solo show of abstract paintings was held in the city seven years later. 

Through the seventies, coming into contact with many of the leading lights of New York's abstract art scene, his commitment to a formalist approach to art grew; a commitment that continues to develop to this day. Bowling, who was elected as an RA in 2005, currently divides his time between London and New York. His work is in many public and private collections, including the Tate, MOMA, and the Metropolitan.