One of Britain's leading visual artists, Sir Terry Frost, died earlier this week. Many tributes to Terry's life and work have appeared in the national press: he was a influential figure to many artists in the fifties, sixties and seventies. Few may appreciate, however, that one of his best shows was his last.

Frost's Tate St.Ives showing in February 2003, part of an omnibus project called 'Painting Not Painting,' was a splash of fresh paint. It was bold, physically challenging - and a great success.

At the heart of the show was an ambitious installation painting, Contrasts In Red, Black and White (2002/2003) built from 27 separate canvases, each one relating to the next, all tailored to one specific space within Tate St.Ives.

Tate St.Ives Director Susan Daniel-McElroy worked closely with Terry for many months to get the show finished. She tells 24 Hour Museum about this last creative burst by Terry, and what it was like to visit his studio.

"I was always received with charm and humour. He was lovely. I have to say I always felt privileged to go to such a happy household. The house was filled with work, from all the periods of his life."

"And so you went into his house and you got this wonderful impression of colour everywhere. Not filled, but almost like musical notes on a white background. The house is in Newlyn, and it's at the top of the hill. It gets a lot of light. He used to talk of being able to enjoy the sunrise and the sunset just by turning his head."

"In the course of the show, I went to see him about five times. The pattern of the visit would be to be welcomed, then we'd go into the studio. He has a separate studio from the house, then within the house he has a kind of working studio, where paintings are laid out."

"And so, when he was making his plans for Contrast in Red Black and White, he had painted lots and lots of paintings, which he had then scanned into the computer, and then he was working with small paper facsimiles, in order to work out the dynamics of the piece."

This was a bold move for Frost, then aged 88. In the twilight of his artistic career, he was still searching for new ways to work.

"I know he'd never worked like that before. That was a new thing really. It was needs must. He was a terribly resourceful person. When he was asked to design multiples for Tate, mobiles, he just set to very practically, to design it in reality, not realising that he could involve a designer."

"He was very down to earth in that way, he would set to work out how to do something. So in making Contrasts (the major wok in the Tate show) I think he didn't overly rationalise it to himself, he just went away, made his plan, and as that evolved, that's what we would look at as he went along. And he would introduce new elements, and it grew and grew."

"Maybe from his point of view, he was looking for licence, but as soon as I saw it I was really delighted. When I saw what he was intending I was really excited. I think it's really fresh work - with the vigour of a young artist. It has a dynamic that's totally unexpected, because looking at Contrasts, you find yourself 'within' the experience, and that's not happened before in Terry's work."

"The viewer comes into the environment, you find yourself going in several directions at once, because you knew there was a lot to look at from different angles."

"For us, Terry's passing is another marker of something that's going. That period of time. Because Terry was one of the second generation of St.Ives artists, in the Modernist School, so he'd be thought of alongside Bryan Winter, Patrick Heron, Wilhelmina Barns Graham, and Lanyon, I guess."

"The first generation was Gabo, Nicholson, Hepworth, and so on. Probably John Wells. He's the last but one. There is really only Willy (Barnes-Graham) left, I think, who's reached that level of significance in her professional career."

When I phoned Tate St.Ives to get through to Susan Daniel-McElroy, I was immediately struck by a sombre mood in the gallery. Press officer Ina Cole shared the feeling. "We're all rather sad here about Terry passing away. Over the last ten years or so he was always popping in, and we'd come to regard him as a friend of the Gallery."

Susan Daniel-McElroy agreed with this. Frost had been a pivotal figure in the St.Ives scene for many years, and had enthusiastically supported the Tate project.

"He was terribly supportive. He was fun, such good fun. He had such a good sense of humour. You knew if you went to have a chat to him, you'd come away feeling better than when you went in. An ordinary day would expand into an unusual day because of the conversation you'd had with him!"

"He'd always tell you stories. Terry would often go off into great stories about things that had happened. He told me a great story about Ben Nicholson."

"Terry had a studio in the Porthmeor complex. Ben Nicholson was in the same run of studios. They did engage in debate and conversation. Terry, when he finished a painting, would often ask Ben to come and have a look at it."

"There was a painting in our February show, Walk along the Quay (1951) Terry finished that, and he wasn't quite sure what to make of it, because it kind of emerged, he was grappling at the time with his own abstract language. Very much influenced by Nicholson, I would say, and I think Terry would have agreed."

"Ben came in and sat down in total silence for half and hour looking at it. Terry said he was in absolute trepidation, wondering what Ben Nicholson was going to say at the end of this."

"After that great lengthy time, which seemed like eons, because Terry was totally non-plussed and unable to speak, he got up and shook Terry's hand and said - 'Terry - you have everything you will need for your work for the future, in that painting.' And then he just walked out!"

"I think I would take that as a great compliment. What it showed is the importance of mixing with your peers, and engaging in critical debate. It really reveals how you cannot shut yourself away in your home and not engage with your peers."

"He fell ill while we were making the exhibition. Just before Christmas. He thought he's sprained his back by lifting the central element from the large work from our show. He had a check up and they found he had cancer of the prostate and secondary tumours."

"Unless a miracle happened then, you knew things were going to happen, quite soon, inevitably. But I found Terry's attitude quite inspirational, throughout, he was incredibly straightforward, and humorous, even. That reflected his character throughout his life, though."

"He was a man you could very easily underestimate, because he would often almost downplay his work. If you didn't know the context, or the art historical background, you could very easily underestimate him."

"He was incredibly clever, and the idea of taking a risk with his installation, Contrasts in Red, Black and White (2002/2003) - he knew I was up for it. No one had ever let him do it."

Why was this the case? "There were all manner of reasons. The way I work with artists, I very often have a connection with artists, a belief, and faith in them, which has always paid dividends."

"I told him he could do whatever he wanted to. I didn't see the point in anything else really."

The work of Sir Terry Frost, RA, (1915 - 2003) can be seen at Tate St.Ives in the Pier Arts Centre Collection, and there's also a very large wall painting, Three Shades of Blue on the ground floor of the gallery. "We're going to hang on to that as long as we can," said Susan Daniel-McElroy. "He will always be in the St. Ives Collection display, as well."

Elsewhere in the UK, Tate Britain, The V & A, The British Museum, Warwick Arts Centre, Leeds City Art Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art are good places to see more work by this influential and inspirational artist.

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