Patrick Heron was one of the leading artists of his generation, both as an abstract painter and writer, through which he promoted modernist ideas from the European masters (Cezanne, Matisse, Bonnard and Braque) which is reflected in his early work, to the American Abstract Expressionists (Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko and Newman) that revolutionised post-War painting and shaped his output from the late 50s onwards. In 1956, Heron established himself in St Ives, and became a critical figure within that particularly fertile period of British art in Cornwall, including the likes of Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Peter Lanyon, Roger Hilton, William Scott and Terry Frost. 

Heron, above all, was committed to the expressive power of colour, with compositions featuring bold, interlocking shapes and luminous colour fields. The interaction of colour and form was central to his approach to abstraction, devoid of representational allusion, which he developed from the 1960s onwards. Gouaches were central to Heron's output, conceived not as studies but works in their own right. In the 1980s the gouaches become looser and increasingly rhythmical, Heron allowing the fluidity of the medium to determine the compositions; they have a playful, luminous quality that remain as fresh and vibrant today.