CSGA RCA
1919 - 1988
Canadian
Deep Blues #4
oil on canvas
on verso signed, titled and dated 1974
34 x 34 in, 86.4 x 86.4 cm
Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000 CAD
Sold for: $37,250
Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave
PROVENANCE
Gallery Moos Ltd., Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, November 6, 1997, lot 77
Private Collection, Vancouver
LITERATURE
Adele Freedman, Gershon Iskowitz: Painter of Light, 1982, pages 121 and 129
After a pivotal flight by helicopter from Winnipeg to Churchill, Manitoba, in 1967, which inspired the development of his abstract work, Gershon Iskowitz flew north again in 1971 to James Bay and in 1973 to the Yellowknife area. These trips continued to inspire him, and as Adele Freedman wrote, “He became a connoisseur of space and an intimate of light.” After the 1973 trip, Iskowitz produced paintings dappled with all-over patterning, such as our striking Deep Blues #4. It is a work both dreamy and vivacious, with vibrating patches of bright colour hovering over a pearly colour field, which has the connotation of a softly modulated cloud bank. In Deep Blues #4, Iskowitz has eschewed dense patterning and let in more space, making this work more open and contemplative, with greater depth of field.
In 1971, Iskowitz represented Canada at the Venice Biennale. A Polish immigrant and survivor of Auschwitz, he was proud to do so. For as Freedman wrote, “He had painted its portrait over and over again and internalized its great spaces and dazzling colour. By sheer force of will and imagination he had claimed it for his own.”
Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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