Bohuslav Barlow (Ongoing)

Bohuslav Barlow was born as Bohuslav Klos in Bruntal, a small peasant township in Upper Moravia, Czechoslovakia, in 1947.

Bohuslav’s family fled Czechoslovakia while he was a baby as The Iron Curtain descended; for Furstenfeldbruk near Munich. Soon after this his mother moved to England to obtain work, leaving a young Bohuslav in the care of his grandparents. While spending his early years in Bavaria he gained two prevailing memories. The first of which was looking up at the high baroque ceiling in Furstenfeldbruk Church while singing the Catholic chants, and admiring the glorious angels and fat-bottomed putti as they swirled around in a complex design of whites and golds. The second memory was of his home in late summer, aflame with poppies and with a distant view of the Bavarian Alps far beyond. Although his first memory is of Catholic imagery you will not find any in his mature work unlike flowers from his second memory which is recurring even in his most recent pictures.