Cyril Fradan was born in Johannesburg, Union of South Africa (now South Africa) in 1928. He moved to London in 1960, where he showed abstract paintings calling attention to the suffering caused by the apartheid regime. A noted figures in the London art scene of the time, from 1979 Fradan held annual art and music festivals at his Holland Park home for some years.
Artist and designer Cyril Fradan was born to Mr and Mrs B. Bloch in Johannesburg, Union of South Africa (now South Africa) in 1928. There he attended King Edward VII School, and obtained a BA in Art History and English Literature at the University of Witwatersrand. In 1951 he departed for extensive travels around Europe, studying at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1952–53, after which he lectured in art history at the University of Witwatersrand for a year. Receiving an Italian Government Scholarship, Fradan then studied at the Rome Academy between 1954 and 1955. For the following five years, he moved between Rome and Paris, where he taught art, art history, ancient history and languages intermittently at the Overseas School of Rome. In 1959 Fradan and six American artists opened the Appunto Gallery at 46 Via Gregoriana, Rome on 9 May 1959, and he held a solo show there later the same year. For reasons unknown, Fradan settled permanently in London in 1960 (Cyril Fradan archives).
In London, Fradan’s first solo show was Paintings by Cyril Fradan at Woodstock Gallery in May 1961. Some of Fradan’s paintings depicted the suffering of Africans under apartheid, with the focal point being a large abstract representing the agony of 69 Africans killed in the Sharpeville massacre the previous year. While his canvases were on show, a threatening letter addressed to ‘Communist Fradan’ was sent to the Gallery, warning him against such depictions, making him afraid for his life (Imago). Fradan showed an abstract composition in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1963, and held other solo exhibitions at The Mercury Gallery, London (1964), Plymouth Art Centre (1967), and Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester (1969). In this period, Fradan contributed sets and costume designs for many theatre productions, including Gordon Crosse’s operatic production of W. B. Yeats’ Purgatory in 1966 (Griffel, 2013). He also taught History of Art at the London College of Printing from 1964–65, at Guildford College of Art from 1966–68, and Sculpture at the Sir John Cass School of Art from 1972–73.
In the 1970s Fradan held further solo shows in the UK, including Cyril Fradan: Paintings, Reliefs, Drawings at Bluecoat, Liverpool (1971), as well as the Arts Council Gallery, Belfast (1973), Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham (1973), and Ansdell Gallery, London (1974). In the early 1970s he wrote for Leisure: Painter & Craftsmen. In 1979, Fradan opened what became an annual Studio Exhibition and Music Recital Festival at his home and studio at 23 Lower Addison Gardens in Holland Park, west London. His artworks for sale and the musicians were young professionals. For the sixth annual festival in 1984, an art critic for the Contemporary Review described Fradan’s abstracts as ‘style-soft’ with ‘shimmering effects, a pleasure in shaded shapes and sinuous line, a depth of glazing to give colour intensity on the often large canvases’ (Leech, 1984). At the eighth annual festival in 1986, held under the patronage of the Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea, there were 41 performances over 19 days (Cyril Fradan archives; Illustrated London News, 1986). In 1988 Fradan reviewed the Royal Academy of Arts’ The Age of Chivalry exhibition for Contemporary Review, and the same year moved to Bangkok, Thailand.
Following a series of recurring brain tumors and unable to paint for some years, Cyril Fradan died in Bangkok, Thailand in 1997. His work is not currently represented in any UK public collections. His works are mostly held in private and public collections in South Africa.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Cyril Fradan]
Publications related to [Cyril Fradan] in the Ben Uri Library