Painted Copies, Digital Reproductions, and Originals: A Case Study of Copying Frank Bowling’s 'Lent'

This paper presents a case study of copying Frank Bowling’s lost painting 'Lent'(1963) with his permission to examine the relationship between physical copies and digital reproductions of a painting. The original painting was one of the most important of Bowling’s early career paintings, but it no longer exists, having gone missing from his studio in the early 1980s. Consequently, the copy was made based on Bowling’s description, his memory of his process, and through using (poor quality) digital reproductions of the painting. The paper focuses on the challenges in replicating texture, gesture, and colour from a limited reproduction, and raises questions about certain inherent characteristics of paintings that cannot easily be captured by reproductions, while also highlighting the ways in which digital reproductions can be manipulated to uncover new aspects of the original work. Drawing upon an agreement between Bowling and the author regarding the copy’s destiny and the relationship to the original, the paper raises issues about the ontological status, function, and value of the painted copy and the digital reproductions in relation to the original painting.