Frank Walter
Born 1929, Antigua; died 2009, Antigua.
Frank Walter was born Francis Archibald Wentworth Walter on Horsford Hill, Antigua. A descendant of enslaved persons and plantation owners and burdened with the distinction of being the first person of color to be a manager of a sugar plantation on the island of Antigua, Walter struggled with his identity and place in the world. Torn between his Black Caribbean ancestry and his Northern Europe heritage, he embarked on a tour of Europe and the UK between 1953 and 1961 in search of his familial roots. Unprepared for the racism he experienced, he returned to Antigua where he worked as a photographer, frame maker, and artist before designing and building a home, art studio, and garden in a remote location on Bailey’s Hill in Antigua in 1993. Suffering from mental illness, he took refuge in self-imposed artistic isolation: forsaking all social expectations, he dedicated his time to writing, recording, carving, and painting the fertile landscape and the people he encountered as well as envisioning and reflecting upon his philosophical universe.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025
Frank Walter: Moon Voyage, David Zwirner, Paris, FR
2024
Frank Walter: To Capture a Soul, The Drawing Center, New York, NY
2023
Pastorale, David Zwirner, Hong Kong
The Inner Island, Fondation Carmignac, Porquerolles Island, FR
Frank Walter, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, BR
Frank Walter: Artist, Gardener, Radical, Garden Museum, London, UK
2022
Frank Walter’s Chess Board, Xavier Hufkens Gallery, Brussels, BE
By Land, Air, Home, And Sea: The World of Frank Walter, Curated by Hilton Als, David Zwirner Gallery, NY
2021
Music of the Spheres, Ingleby, Edinburgh, UK
Frank Walter: Cartography, Landscape, and Heraldry, David Zwirner, London, UK
2020
Retrospective, Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, DE
2019
Blue Flowers, Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington, NZ
2017
Frank Walter: The Last Universal Man, 57th Venice Biennale, Antigua and Barbuda Pavilion, Venice, IT
Solo presentation, Outsider Art Fair, New York, by Hirschl and Adler Modern, New York
2016
Frank Walter: Lonely Bird, Hirschl and Adler Modern, New York
2015
Frank Walter, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2013
Solo presentation at Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL, by Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
2013
Frank Walter, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
2013
Solo presentation at the Armory Show, New York, by Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025
After the end. Cartographies for Another Time, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France
2024
Le monde comme il va, Bourse de commerce, Paris, FR
Voyage, Maureen Paley, Morena Di Luna, London, UK
2023
Twenty Five, Ingelby Gallery, Edinburgh, YK
L’île intêrieure, curated by Jean-Marie Gallais, Fondation Carmignac, Porquerolles, FR
2022
Splendid Isolation, S.M.A.K., Ghent, BE
Sanctuary, KARMA, Thomaston, ME
2021
Get Lifted! Karma Gallery, New York, NY
On Leaving, Modern Art, London, UK
2019
Find Yourself: Carnival and Resistance, Venice Biennale, Antigua and Barbuda Pavilion, Venice, Italy
Damn! The Defiant, Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Hiding In Plain Sight: Objects Common And Curious, Freedman Art, New York, NY, USA
2018
Jacob’s Ladder, Ingleby, Edinburgh, UK
Vis-à-Vis, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
TWENTY, Ingleby, Edinburgh, UK
2017
Only Small Paintings, Fortnight Institute, New York
2015
Land & Sea, Danese/Corey Gallery, New York
2013
Songs of Innocence and Experience: Alfred Wallis, Forrest Bess & Frank Walter, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
Selected Public Collections
Glenstone Foundation, Potomac, MD
Hiscox Art Collection, London, UK
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN
Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, DE
Pinault Collection, Paris, FR
Rennie Collection, Vancouver, CAN
The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection, San Francisco, CA
Selected Publications
2024
By Land, Air, Home and Sea: The World of Frank Walter, Hilton Als, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Barbara Paca and Charlie Porter, David Zwirner Books, New York, USA
Frank Walter: To Capture a Soul, The Drawing Center, New York, USA
2022
Frank Walter’s Chess Board, Xavier Hufkens, Belgium
2021
Frank Walter: Music of the Spheres, Ingleby and Anomie, UK
2020
Frank Walter: Eine Retrospektive, Barbara Paca and Susanne Pfeffer (Eds.), Ausstellungs-Katalog für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt am Main, Köhn, Germany
2019
“Carnival and Frank Walter’s Universe” in Find Yourself: Carnival and Resistance, Grafiche Veneziane, Venice, Italy
2017
Frank Walter: The Last Universal Man 1926 – 2009, Barbara Paca Ph.D, Radius Books, Santa Fe, USA
2013
Frank Walter, Ingleby, Edinburgh, UK