Sold for: $29,250

PROVENANCE
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto
Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Rental & Sales Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Montreal

LITERATURE
Constance Naubert-Riser, Jean McEwen: Colour in Depth: Paintings and Works on Paper, 1951 - 1987, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1987, page 50

In the 1960s Jean McEwen produced a series of works entitled Le drapeau inconnu (The Unknown Flag). In the mid-1980s another related series emerged – Le drapeau écorché (The Slaughtered Flag), of which this is a stunning example. Common to both these series were hot reds and blazing yellows, as in this incandescent golden work. McEwen’s brilliance as a colourist is in full play, as his central colour is enlivened with orange, pink and mauve, contrasted with background tones of green. Constance Naubert-Riser writes, “It is only after an examination of all the works in this series that the full critical significance of the title emerges: these ‘slaughtered flags’ are a reformulation of the problem of underlying structure treated so brilliantly in the ‘unknown flags’ series. The result of this reformulation is the complete obliteration of the central structure and a reassertion of the nonetheless increasingly threatened margins. So the element of diversity is back in force – the element that is ultimately the uniting feature of this oeuvre and the central paradox of all painting.”

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