Sandra Blow, R.A. (1923-2006)

In 1970, 'Blow met an architect whose enthusiasm for the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe persuaded her to break with freehand methods and experiment with rectilinear compositions created using solid projections attached to the canvas ... Blow realised that the Miesian notion of structure - the internal relationships between parts of a building and the whole - might provide a parallel for her sense of the workings of pictorial space ... Contemporary Minimalist art or discourse may also have influenced her feeling that some kind of new departure was both necessary and possible ... Blow's Minimalist experiment took the form of large square or almost square canvases painted a single colour. These were subdivided by metal attachments or bands of thin sheet metal or textile, positioned at right angles to each other and the edge of the painting' (see M. Bird, Sandra Blow, Aldershot, 2005, p. 105).