Harold Barling Town 1924 - 1990

In 1960, just as Painters Eleven voted itself out of existence, its mission accomplished, Town, at thirty-six, was riding a rising tide of excitement, achievement, and production in his own work. Already behind him were a staggering number of Single Autographic Prints, which had garnered international attention, a body of astonishing collages the likes of which were never seen in Canada or elsewhere, a huge public mural, and a prolific run of paintings, right through the 1950s, that were original, powerful, luscious, and beautiful. And they came in formats from ten inches square to wall size.

Genisis is from this peak period in Town's career, and combines his understanding of abstraction, his remarkable sense of colour, and demonstrates the fecundity of his imagination in creating a composition that has both rock-solid elements and a spiritual élan. The richness of lines, colours, scumbled areas, shapes, and compositional devices almost overwhelms the canvas and makes it seem as if it were about to explode. Town's remarkable gift was the energy he was able to bring to his other natural talents of draughtsmanship, emotional fervor, and intellectual power. All these are manifest here.