Frank Walter

David Zwirner is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by Antiguan artist, writer, and polymath Frank Walter (1926–2009) at the gallery’s 616 N Western Avenue location in Los Angeles. This will be the artist’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery and the first dedicated presentation of his work on the West Coast. The show is one of several international projects that celebrate Walter’s centenary and will coincide with Frank Walter: Filosofia da cor at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil, which is on view until January 31, 2027.

Exhibited in Los Angeles will be a representative selection of paintings that span the breadth of Walter’s recurrent subject matter—vividly colored landscapes, vignettes, and portraits, among others—with a focused installation of intimate, tondo-format paintings from the artist’s Spool series. Made late in Walter’s life and in part influenced by memories of a transatlantic journey he endured aboard a ship, these works reveal his fascination with both capturing and conjuring a unique vision of nature. Appearing like portholes and serving as portals, Walter’s Spool paintings embody many of the themes of his broader oeuvre and those of this exhibition. Informed by anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s concept of the five “scapes” of globalization, this presentation considers in particular how Walter’s compositions touch on the dreamscape, landscape, and ethnoscape, offering a multivalent understanding of the artist’s visual world—one where the racial, genealogical, geographical, historical, and imaginary converge. 
 
We are grateful to Frank Walter’s family, and to consulting curator Dr. Barbara Paca OBE, for their support and collaboration.