Sandra Blow – Blue collage

Sandra Betty Blow (14 September 1925 – 22 August 2006) was an English abstract painter and one of the pioneers of the British abstract movement of the 1950s. Blow’s works are characteristically large scale, colourful abstract collages made from discarded materials.

Born in London, she suffered scarlet fever as a child, spending weekends and holidays at her grandparents’ fruit farm in Kent. There she spent time painting, before enrolling at Saint Martin’s School of Art between 1941-1946, and then the Royal Academy Schools, 1946-1947. She later enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, where she met Alberto Burri, her partner of a few years. Blow and Burri travelled in Italy together before moving to and working in Paris, and Burri became a life long influence in her work.