Works

Realism, however Francophile and subtly handled, was not to be enough for the mature Grant. From the mid-1960s his work became increasingly abstract. A series of paintings based on the Battle of Azincourt, filled with stylized post-Cubist personages and all-over pattern, led to a group of paintings based on dancers and other figures in interiors.

Grant was already in the process of adapting a form of expressive, intuitive abstraction, taken in part from Gauguin, Van Gogh and the Fauves. In the early 1970s, the palette and structure of these semi-abstracted paintings owe more to American painters such as de Kooning. The starkly beautiful results are transitional but impressive.

The paintings and prints are descriptions of places he loved and constantly returned to. One could describe him as a French reflection of the St. Ives School — there is a wonderful sense of freedom in these images, and a great joie de vivre.