LOT 045

CGP CSGA CSPWC P11
1926 - 2002
Canadian

Northern Landscape 2
oil on canvas
on verso signed, titled on a label, dated 1971 and inscribed "Toronto 325"
36 x 43 5/8 in, 91.4 x 110.8 cm

Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000 CAD

Sold for: $73,250

Preview at:

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Ontario

LITERATURE
Ihor Holubizky, Kazuo Nakamura: The Method of Nature, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2001, pages 10 and 14
Gary Michael Dault, “Remembering a Man Whose Life, and Art, Embraced the Minimal,” Globe and Mail, October 9, 2004, para. 2, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/remembering-a-man-whose-life-and-art-embraced-the-minimal/article746290, accessed January 30, 2021


In the 1950s, while his fellow Painters Eleven artists were immersed in the drama of Abstract Expressionism, Kazuo Nakamura was pursuing his own path of minimalist cool. While he worked in abstraction from the 1950s through the 1970s, in series such as his String paintings and Block Structure paintings, he interspersed these abstracts with minimalist landscapes in green or blue. As he said in a 1993 interview, “It takes energy to do abstract work. Every once in a while, I do landscapes, to do what’s on top.” In 1956, Nakamura expressed his overriding belief that “there’s a sort of fundamental universal pattern in all art and nature…In a sense, scientists and artists are doing the same thing. This world of pattern is a world we are discovering together.” In Northern Landscape 2, Nakamura explored the repeating patterns of simplified triangular shapes of trees, layered in clusters on a hillside. The ground and sky are a colour field of flat white with softly modulated blue. Our eye reads the scene as a landscape – adding dimension when it is only suggested. Northern Landscape 2 is an outstanding example of Nakamura’s refined and restrained purity of expression.


Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information posted, errors and omissions may occur. All bids are subject to our Terms and Conditions of Business. Bidders must ensure they have satisfied themselves with the condition of the Lot prior to bidding. Condition reports are available upon request.