Drawing Dialogues: Ben Bowling & Claudia Tobin on Frank Bowling

This live online conversation will explore Frank Bowling’s drawing practice spanning over 60 years.

Events

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Frank Bowling in the liferoom at Royal College of Art by unknown photographer_edited

Event details

Date

1 July 2026

Time

7:00PM

Location

Online

Price

£6

In this live online event, Ben Bowling will be joined by curator Claudia Tobin for a conversation exploring Frank Bowling’s drawing practice

Together, they will offer insight into the development of his work, reflecting on drawing as a fundamental and continuous part of his artistic process.

This conversation will be live-streamed on YouTube. If you have any questions about the event, please contact digitalstudio@royaldrawingschool.org.

Main image: Frank Bowling working on Execution of Mary Queen of Scots taken by Tony Evans, 1963. Photo: Tony Evans © Estate of Tony Evans. Courtesy Frank Bowling Archive

Photo: Courtesy Sacha Bowling

Ben Bowling

Ben Bowling is the son of the artist Sir Frank Bowling and, with his brother Sacha, co-directs his father’s studio, and is trustee of the Frank Bowling Foundation. Ben works with galleries, museums and art historians to safeguard his father’s artistic legacy and to enable him to make the critically acclaimed work that is at the heart of his painting practice. Ben is also Emeritus Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at King's College London and former adviser to the UK Parliament, European Commission, Interpol and the United Nations. His books include 'Violent Racism, Policing the Caribbean' and 'The Politics of the Police'. In his spare time he sings with his band Doc Bowling and his Blues Professors.

Claudia Tobin

Dr Claudia Tobin is a writer, curator, and art historian specialising in the intersections between modern and contemporary literature and visual cultures. She curated 'Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors' at the Garden Museum, London in 2024. Recent book publications include a collection of Virginia Woolf’s art writings, 'Oh, to be a Painter!' (2021). She teaches English literature and visual cultures at Cambridge University.

I’d been sitting for so many people; I got the urge to do it myself. I felt competitive too with those artists who drew all the time when I wasn’t doing drawing. At the Royal College, the whole training was about life drawing, drawing for life. It came out of that, it came out of me working out for myself how, not having been trained, how to draw, how I could teach myself to draw. Today, I still have the inclination or the remnants of that way of proceeding. I still tend to draw my pictures with the materials themselves. I want the drawn lines to operate separately and by themselves, but they must fit into what they’re in: the flat, plain colour.”

Frank Bowling OBE RA

NORBERT LYNTON

Frank Bowling