Gordon Applebe Smith Canadian, 1919-2020
SA 13 Landscape, c. 1965
Oil on canvas
25 1/2 x 30 in.
64.8 x 76.2 cm.
64.8 x 76.2 cm.
Signed lower right margin, titled verso
Further images
Literature
Ian M. Thom and Andrew Hunter, Gordon Smith: The Act of Painting, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1997, a similar circa 1966 canvas entitled Blue Still Life reproduced page 83
By the 1960s, Gordon Smith had developed a series of paintings built around a concentrated gathering of organic forms suspended against deep, atmospheric fields of colour. Smith's encounter with Arshile...
By the 1960s, Gordon Smith had developed a series of paintings built around a concentrated gathering of organic forms suspended against deep, atmospheric fields of colour. Smith's encounter with Arshile Gorky's work during a 1951 visit to San Francisco has often been cited as an important touchstone for these paintings. In SA 13 Landscape, painterly brushstrokes of earthy greens and deeps blues clash against a black and ochre yellow centre. As quick shards of reds and whites jet out, almost forging the picture plane, directly towards the viewer. Smith's forms, albeit non-representational, belong to a broader language of biomorphic abstraction, in which the landscape is neither abandoned nor translated into symbols. Like Gorky, Smith discovered that forms drawn from the natural world could remain open, provisional, and deeply felt.
1
of
2