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LOT 005

BCSFA CGP CPE OC RCA
1919 - 2020
Canadian

R II
acrylic on canvas
signed and on verso signed and titled and dated 2000 on the gallery label
66 3/4 x 49 3/4 in, 169.5 x 126.4 cm

Estimate: $50,000 - $70,000 CAD

Sold for: $61,250

Preview at:

PROVENANCE
Equinox Gallery, Vancouver
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Vancouver, 2000

LITERATURE
Ian M. Thom and Andrew Hunter, Gordon Smith: The Act of Painting, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1997, page 101
Vancouver Collects, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2001, reproduced page 102
Andy Sylvester, Gordon Smith: Don't Look Back, 2014, reproduced page 131 and the 2000 nine-panel painting entitled The Seasons, collection of the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, reproduced pages 128 and 129

EXHIBITED
Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, Gordon Smith: New Paintings, September 14 - October 14, 2000
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver Collects, September 28, 2001 - February 10, 2002


Gordon Smith’s importance and influence in Vancouver as an early modernist painter extends from the 1950s to his passing in 2020 and beyond. In 1951, he was introduced to international and regional artists at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco who were creating a new culture of modernity through the language of abstract art—artist-teachers such as Elmer Bischoff, Clyfford Still and Richard Diebenkorn. Smith absorbed the lessons of the Abstract Expressionist movement and its emphasis on the importance of the manipulation of paint itself, driven by the gesture. Back in Vancouver, painters such as Jack Shadbolt and B.C. Binning were aligning to leave behind the conflicts of the Depression and World War II, inspired by the new progressive culture of modernity, and Smith was a significant part of this movement.

From then on, Smith constantly evolved, creating a body of work that was always rooted in landscape, but expressed through abstraction. Sometimes the representational dominated his paintings, and sometimes the abstract, and varying degrees in between, and this fluid sliding between the two poles is what he was known for. He was inquisitive, always absorbing new influences (he famously stated that he was “one hundred painters deep”), and he encouraged new artists, which kept him in the stream of change.

R II from 2000 relates to The Seasons, a nine-panel abstract work also executed in that year—each panel with a different colour theme of red, green, white, blue, yellow and white. Each panel of The Seasons seems to encapsulate the feeling of winter, spring, summer or fall in colour itself. Our painting R II is a larger version of the red panel at the far right in The Seasons, and it is executed in a similar painterly approach. Its saturated hues stand out in a time when Smith was often painting with a more monochromatic approach to colour, which continued in the Snow series as the decade wore on.

R II is dominated by a rich reddish-orange ground, punctuated by vibrant patches of purple, emerald, yellow and cobalt blue, which glow like jewels in the hot surface. Smith builds layers of paint with his dynamic brushwork into a two-dimensional dance of form that constantly recedes and then returns to the surface, emphasized by the pattern of dripping that runs down the painting. The expressive evidence of his brush is everywhere in the intensely worked surface – in the scumbling, the wiping and the assertion of patches of paint. The artist creates the same effect through colour, as brighter oranges flicker like lights behind darker reds, making the surface vibrate. In R II, we feel the joy of Smith as creator of this beautiful canvas, infused with the essence of autumn and pulsing with life.


Estimate: $50,000 - $70,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information posted, errors and omissions may occur. All bids are subject to our Terms and Conditions of Business. Bidders must ensure they have satisfied themselves with the condition of the Lot prior to bidding. Condition reports are available upon request.