Born in London in 1925, Sandra’s innovative approach to painting during in 1950’s insured her position as one of the leaders of the post war British abstract movement. Sandra studied at St. Martin’s (1941-6) and then the Royal Academy School’s, before leaving for Italy. Alberto Burri introduced Sandra to the potentials of collage and the tensions between textures therein. From her mentor Sandra distilled her own form of reductive abstract expressionism, preoccupied with space, matter and movement. Fuelled also by the Renaissance principles of geometry, light and scale, Sandra set about treating form with its own innate reality and rejecting subject matter in terms of representation. “I can remember that extraordinary sense of shedding everything, of leaving all the known tracks. And then just looking for something that could be my own, of interpreting the actual structure of the painting which seems to connect with abstract-structure and space – and find my own language in it!” Throughout the fifties Sandra enjoyed regular one-man shows at Gimpel Fils, London and had soon exhibited all over the world. In 1978 Sandra was elected Royal Academician and in 1994 the Royal Academy honoured her achievements with a solo show.
