By Annette McIntyre From Ilkley Gazette

A CARIBBEAN artist who was convinced he was linked with some of the most aristocratic families of Europe is to have his work displayed at Harewood.

The stately home’s terrace gallery will be used for an exhibition of 63 works on paper by Frank Walter who died in 2009. The works, never seen together in England before, will be on view from June 30 to October 29.

Francis Archibald Wentworth Walter, self-styled 7th Prince of the West Indies, Lord of Follies and the Ding-a-Ding Nook, was born in Antigua in 1926. Hugely talented as an artist and writer, he was somewhat flawed by an obsession with his ancestral lineage which he believed linked him with the aristocratic families of Europe including Charles II, through his mistress Lucy Walter, Franz Joseph of Austria and the Dukes of Buccleuch.

For the last 25 years of his life, Walter removed himself from society, living in an isolated shack on an Antiguan hillside, painting on all sorts of material including discarded Polaroid boxes and LP covers.

His rich legacy includes several hundred paintings and carvings, as well as 25,000 pages of his thoughts on every conceivable subject including history, philosophy, religion and science.

In 1958, he travelled to Leeds where he worked in poorly paid part-time jobs and researched his real and imaginary genealogy.

The exhibition, Flamboyant Trees, has been made possible with support from the Richard Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh who have championed the artist’s work in the UK and internationally.

The gallery’s director Richard Ingleby said: “It is terrific to see this exhibition of Frank Walter’s paintings at Harewood House and I suspect that the delusions of grandeur from which he suffered would have encouraged him to see it as an appropriate setting. The view out across fields from the Terrace at Harewood seems especially fitting for an exhibition that includes so many of Walter’s paintings of trees, some of which were inspired by the time that he spent in Yorkshire and Scotland in the 1950s, before returning to the Caribbean and a life of self-imposed isolation.

Nicola Stephenson, Exhibitions and Projects Producer at Harewood House Trust said: “Harewood is particularly delighted to exhibit a selection of paintings by Frank Walter this summer when Leeds is also celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Leeds Carnival and the contribution of the Caribbean community to our wider cultural life.

“Walter was a complex man – an artist, a writer and philosopher; since his death in 2009 there has been a growing recognition of his work.”

For more on this story go to: http://www.ilkleygazette.co.uk/news/news_local/15352100.Work_of_Caribbean_artist_Frank_Walter_to_be_displayed_at_Harewood/