Important Canadian Art

/

Lot 141
  • 141

Harold Barling Town 1924 - 1990

Estimate
25,000 - 35,000 CAD
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Harold Barling Town
  • Snap #41
  • signed and dated lower right TOWN '73; signed, titled and dated by the artist on the reverse and titled on a label on the reverse
  • various oils on canvas
  • 155.6 by 155.6 cm.
  • 61 ¼ by 61 ¼ in.

Provenance

Mazelow Gallery, Toronto

Estate of Harold Town

Literature

David Burnett, Town, Toronto, 1986, p. 175

Catalogue Note

The name for the Snap series came from the technique by which they were made.  Town would load a length of string by squeezing paint directly from the tube on it or applying the paint by a brush.  He would then secure it tightly across the canvas and by snapping the string against the canvas, transfer the paint.

Many of these Snap paintings were done over a three year period and as he refined and developed his technique, the surfaces, as seen in Snap #41, become more complex with the mixture of colours and are far denser in impasto as Town built up each successive layer of paint.

Gary Michael Dault has favourably commented on Town's Snap paintings, "I now think that they are among the most orignal non-representative paintings ever made."