Force 8
Frost spent much of the war held prisoner in a concentration camp where he met the artist Adrian Heath (b.1920) who encouraged him to paint. After the war he studied art at St. Ives and Camberwell. In 1950 he settled in St. Ives, having painted his first abstract picture the previous year. He worked for a short period as assistant to Barbara Hepworth (1903-75) before concentrating on his own work. Certain shapes and symbols recur in Frost's work of all periods, often suggesting the rhythmic shapes of boats, masts and water that surrounded him in Cornwall. In particular, he used a semi-circle motif which he frequently returned to, and which appears in Force 8. Force 8 is bold and expressive. Of the painting, Frost says he "simply wanted to do something in terre verte black and white on that large canvas." The title comes from a radio announcement about a force 8 gale; Frost associated the pressure of the gale bashing against his studio window with the forceful image he had created.
