British abstract painter, born in Sheffield. He studied at Sheffield College of Art, 1951–6, and the *Royal Academy Schools, 1956–60. Early influences were the painting of Nicolas de *Stäel and the teaching of Victor *Pasmore. He took part in the *‘Situation’ exhibition of abstract painting in 1960. His paintings at this point used bands of colour which suggested a kind of buckling of the picture plane, but by the time of his appearance in the *‘New Generation’ exhibition in 1964 he was painting unequivocally flat works with the paint soaked into the canvas in a manner reminiscent of the *Colour Field painters: simple intensely coloured forms floated against a colour field (14.6.64, 1964, Manchester Art Gallery). Following the exhibition, he was awarded a bursary which enabled him to travel to New York, where he met Helen *Frankenthaler, Kenneth *Noland, and Clement *Greenberg.