Adrian Heath 1920-1992
Composition, White and Yellow, 1953
oil on canvas
86.2 x 61.1 cm
34 x 24 in
34 x 24 in
signed and dated; further signed, titled and dated verso
The present example was painted in 1953, at the height of Heath’s promotion of abstraction. The same year, the artist had published a popular summary book on abstract painting which...
The present example was painted in 1953, at the height of Heath’s promotion of abstraction. The same year, the artist had published a popular summary book on abstract painting which provided a short history of the movement and had organised the collective weekend exhibitions of abstract and Constructivist works at his studio on Fitzroy Street. This is typical of Heath’s work in the early-mid-1950s, made up of hard-edged shapes setting it apart from the more organic forms characteristic of his later work. He would start his compositions using Euclidian geometry, before moving carefully proportioned template shapes across a surface and recording their movements in paint. Exhibiting the in which the artist had much more in common with the European avant-garde of the 1950s than his American Abstract Expressionist counterparts, much has already been written about the similarities between Heath’s work and that of Serge Poliakoff and Nicholas de Staël, one can see evidence of the emerging influence of the latter beginning to seep into Heath’s brushwork here, before it becomes clearer in his work later into the decade.
Provenance
Private Collection, USA1
of
2