Sold for: $46,250

PROVENANCE
Downstairs Gallery, Edmonton, 1977
By descent to the present Private Collection, Edmonton and then British Columbia

LITERATURE
Terry Fenton, Jules Olitski and the Tradition of Oil Painting, Edmonton Art Gallery, 1979, reproduced page 38 and listed page 42

EXHIBITED
Edmonton Art Gallery, Jules Olitski: Paintings of the 70s, September 12 - October 28, 1979, catalogue #27

An important voice in the Colour Field movement, Jules Olitski experimented throughout his career with thick paint and iridescent acrylic mediums, creating evocative relationships between form, surface and space.

RamBam - 1 is a striking example of how he explored these themes in the middle of his career. Whereas his earlier canvases appeared almost stained, stripping painting back to the essential elements of colour with an airy dematerialization, beginning in the 1970s he started to experiment with a refined palette - utilizing heavy impasto and broad, distinct brush-strokes, combined with his signature spray technique. In 1976, his painting became explorations of light and dark - RamBam - 1 is almost radiant and approaching a sculptural relief.

Olitski was championed early in his career by the art critic Clement Greenberg, and he represented the United States in the 1966 Venice Biennale. In 1969, he became the first living American artist to hold a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. RamBam - 1 has been held in an important private collection since 1977 and was included in an exhibtion of Olitski's work at the Edmonton Art Gallery in 1979.

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