CGP CPE CSGA OC OSA P11 RCA
1924 - 1990
Canadian
July
mixed media collage on board
signed and dated 1958 and on verso signed, titled, dated July 1957 on the Art Gallery of Ontario label and 1958 on the Biennial label and inscribed "(15/14)" and "Shown Canadian Biennial" on a label
71 x 48 in, 180.3 x 121.9 cm
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD
Sold for: $49,250
Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave
PROVENANCE
A gift from the Artist to a Private Collection, Toronto, 1958
Sold sale of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 24, 2017, lot 55
LITERATURE
David Burnett, Town, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1986, reproduced page 73, listed page 222
Iris Nowell, Painters Eleven: The Wild Ones of Canadian Art, 2011, page 164
EXHIBITED
Art Gallery of Toronto, Third Biennial of Canadian Art, 1959
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Town: A Retrospective, May 1986
The year 1957 was a very good one for Harold Town. Following participation in the Venice Biennale and the American Abstract Artists’ exhibition in New York in 1956, Town won his first international award at the Second International Exhibition of Drawings and Prints in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, participated in the Milan Triennale, and also won the noteworthy Arno Prize for graphic art at the Bienal de São Paulo in Brazil. The latter show, said Canadian Art magazine at the time, was “the most important exhibition of modern art being held regularly in this hemisphere.” This mixed media work was started in this same fruitful year and is a striking example of how Town’s experimental energies in collage came to fruition. Town worked in a great variety of media simultaneously—painting, drawing, collage and printmaking—and we can see elements of each combined masterfully in this impressive work.
In the catalogue for Town, his retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1986, an image of July is reproduced with the date of 1957. In the catalogue listing, David Burnett notes that 1957 was changed to 1958, indicating that Town worked on this colourful collage in both years.
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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