By Land, Air, Home, and Sea: The World of Frank Walter
Introduction by Hilton Als. Texts by Barbara Paca, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, and Charlie Porter
Explore Frank Walter’s relationship to Antigua and Dominica through a range of works and writings that express his intimate connection to Caribbean nature, landscape, and place.
“Nothing seems to be reworked—it is as if each piece drew or painted itself without being adjusted, revised, or fussed over.” —Hyperallergic
“One gets the sense,” writes Hilton Als on Frank Walter, “in looking at [his] rivers and sky, that his perspectives were hard-won: he doesn’t just look at a bank and water, he pulls back, rather like a cinematographer . . . to get at the poetic essence of a scene.” Walter’s visionary encounter with the visual and natural world around him is the focus of the selection of paintings in this volume. Tender, quiet, and lush, the works were inspired by his thoughts, knowledge, journeys, and surroundings. Depicting vistas from Antigua to the rugged Scottish Highlands—painted, in some cases, years later from memory—Walter’s work offers a transporting visual journey and a meditation on the act of engaged observation.
Published on the occasion of the 2022 exhibition at David Zwirner, this catalogue includes an introduction by the show’s curator, Hilton Als. Barbara Paca, the leading expert on Walter, writes a text detailing her personal experience meeting Walter. An essay by Charlie Porter takes readers on a walk through Walter’s London as he muses about the artist’s life and art. Joshua Jelly-Schapiro travels to Antigua and Dominica to explore the history of the islands and Walter’s lasting impact there.
Publisher: David Zwirner Books
Artists: Frank Walter
Contributors: Hilton Als, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Barbara Paca, Charlie Porter
Designer: Pacific
Printer: Verona Libri, Verona
Publication Date: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 9 × 11 in | 22.9 × 27.9 cm
Pages: 128
Reproductions: 84 illustrations
ISBN: 9781644231012
Retail: $70 | $90 CAN | £55
Status: Available
Frank Walter
Frank Walter (1926–2009) was born Francis Archibald Wentworth Walter, on Horsford Hill, Antigua. He spent much of the 1950s traveling and learning advanced agricultural and industrial techniques in England, Scotland, and West Germany. The artist returned to the Caribbean in 1961, where, in addition to painting, drawing, and writing, he began making sculptures, photographs, and sound recordings. In the early 1990s, Walter designed and built his home and studio on Bailey Hill in Antigua, where he spent the remainder of his time in relative isolation, reflecting, writing, and making art. Walter had retrospectives at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, in 2020 and the Pavilion of Antigua and Barbuda at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, and his work has been the subject of solo exhibitions worldwide.
Hilton Als
Hilton Als is an American writer and curator based in New York. His first book, The Women, a meditation on gender, race, and personal identity, was published in 1996. In 2017, Als was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Als is an associate professor of writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts and has taught at Yale University and Smith College, among other universities.
Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer and writer whose books include Names of New York (2021) and Island People: The Caribbean and the World (2016). Jelly-Schapiro is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and his work has also appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, and Harper’s Magazine, among many other publications. He teaches at NYU and serves as Director of Publishing at Pioneer Works.
Barbara Paca
Barbara Paca is a full research professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Paca curated the Frank Walter solo exhibition for the Pavilion of Antigua and Barbuda at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017 and the group exhibition Find Yourself: Carnival and Resistance, exploring Carnival in the culture of Antigua and Barbuda, with Nina Khrushcheva, as part of the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. The Frank Walter Catalogue Raisonné project is currently being undertaken by the Walter family and Barbara Paca.
Charlie Porter
Charlie Porter is a writer from London whose book What Artists Wear was published in 2021. He has written for publications including Financial Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, Vogue, and Luncheon.