Frank Avray Wilson was born in Vacoas, Mauritius in 1914 to parents of Anglo-Irish and French descent. He attended prep school in England, where he remained for the rest of his life. Abstract Expressionism and Tachisme heavily influenced his work and he participated in the landmark <em>Metavisual, Tachiste, Abstract</em> exhibition at the Redfern Gallery (1957). During the following decades Avray Wilson held twelve solo exhibitions in galleries across London, Paris and Brussels, though he partially retired from the commercial art world after the death of his young son in 1967.
Painter Frank Avray Wilson was born to parents of Anglo-Irish and French descent in Vacoas, Mauritius on 3 May 1914, where his father ran a plantation. The colours and tropical forms Avray Wilson was exposed to in his early Mauritian years came to later influence his work. Avray Wilson was sent to prep school in Eastbourne, south east England (c.1921), spending most holidays with his family in either England or France. He continued his education in England through secondary school and university. Avray Wilson painted throughout his school years, his primary medium being watercolour. He eventually made a significant breakthrough in his painting when working as a laboratory assistant. He often drew scientific studies that incorporated watercolour and stains. The meticulous attention to each study bored him and instead he saw that if they were painted quickly, they would ‘suddenly burst into life’ (Avray Wilson interviewed by Cathy Courtney, transcript p. 43). This sparked an initial interest in vitality and dynamism. Avray Wilson subsequently studied biology at Cambridge University and on graduation (1938) he used his scientific knowledge to inform his artistic practice. Having learnt that colour is formed by energy, he became interested in the 'living' aspects of an artwork, taking inspiration from ‘vitalism’ — a biological idea which believes that living things hold a certain transcendental quality which material things lack.He also developed his practice as an 'action' painter.
The first London presentation of Avray Wilson’s work was held at the Redfern Gallery’s Summer Exhibition in 1951. Abstract Expressionism and Tachisme heavily influenced his oeuvre. Tachisme was often used to describe non-figurative art throughout Europe in the 40s and 50s. Taschist works can be defined by their spontaneous use of line and brushstrokes and are said to be the ‘European equivalent’ of Abstract Expressionism (Tate). In 1953, as a member of the progressive Free Painters and Sculptors' group, Avray Wilson became acquainted with the tachist-influenced painter Denis Bowen with whom he participated in the landmark Metavisual, Tachiste, Abstract exhibition at the Redfern Gallery in 1957. Over the next decades Avray Wilson held twelve solo exhibitions in galleries across London, Paris and Brussels. His first solo exhibition was at the Obelisk Gallery in London (1954), followed by the Redfern (1958). In a review of the latter, the Times compared his work to stained glass, ‘both for their rich, deep colours and for their rather portentous use of black outline to give weight to broad ribs and bars of paint’ (Times 1958, p. 20). Indeed, while living in Bisley, Gloucestershire during the 1960s he worked on stained glass, and an Avray Wilson stained-glass triptych was installed in a church on Lord Roborough's estate near Plymouth.
Avray Wilson became immersed within an arts establishment that welcomed new forms of expression and vanguardism and exhibited alongside artists who shared this vision, including Sandra Blow, Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron and Bryan Wynter. In 1956 he co-founded with Bowen the New Vision Centre Gallery (NVCG) alongside Polish émigré artist Halima Nalecz. The NVCG was renowned for exhibiting works by many emerging émigré artists, an unusual approach for this time, and it became part of a wider arts movement intent on defining London as a broad base for artistic expression and experimentation. Avray Wilson left the Gallery in 1960 and in the same year he contributed work to the left-leaning Artists International Association’s Travelling Exhibition, alongside Bernard Cohen, Paul Feiler and Cliff Holden. The Guardian singled out his work Vortex, 1959, noting that it shows ‘this painter in a restrained mood for colour, and consequently all power is concentrated in the spontaneous organization of the rough-stabbed geometric elements’ (Moore 1960, p. 7). Avray Wilson also exhibited with The London Group, Free Painters and Sculptors, and the Royal Academy of Arts. In 1963 he participated in the innovative 1st Commonwealth Biennale of Abstract Art at the Commonwealth Institute, London, which featured a number of artists from Commonwealth countries, many of whom had settled in Britain during the preceding decades.
Following the death of his young son in 1967, Avray Wilson retired from the commercial art market during the 1970s, only to return 20 years later. Alongside art, he dedicated much of his time to critical writing. Seminal works included Art into Life (1958), which explored the link between art and vitality, and Art as Understanding (1963). Avray Wilson died on 1 January 2009. His work is held in UK public collections including Fitzwilliam, Cambridge, Tate, and the V&A, London. Posthumous exhibitions were held at the Redfern Gallery (1995 and 2002) and in 2016 Whitford Fine Art, in London's St James's, presented a show of early work. In the early 1980s, Adrian Mibus, director of the gallery, had visited Avray Wilson and bought a number of his early works which had remained hidden from the public eye until this moment.