Untitled

Provenance:
Private Collection, Toronto

Literature:
Judith M. Nasby, The University of Guelph Art Collection: A Catalogue of Paintings, Drawing, Prints and Sculpture, The University of Guelph, Guelph, 1980, page 164.

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Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., Vancouver and Nova Scotia, 2007. pages 212-213 and 221.
Notes:
Modern painters in the mid-20th century challenged the definition and parameters of painting by emphasizing the flatness of the picture plane, thereby shattering the art form as a realist escape by calling attention to the act of painting itself and the materiality of the medium. Reg Holmes (b.1934) takes this radicalism many steps further by entirely refiguring the canvas, as seen here in this lot. A shaped canvas forces the viewer to redefine our notion of what a painting is or can be. Massive in scale, the adjacent geometric cells are rendered in characteristic flatness but paradoxically create an impressive optical illusion. Rendered with sharp lines and contrasting colours, the work removes all notion of the natural world.

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Holmes attended the Vancouver School of Art in the mid 1950s, where he later taught painting and silkscreening. He moved to New York in 1967 where he lived and painted until returning to Canada in 1975. A colleague of renowned Abstract Expressionist, Jack Shadbolt Holmes was part of the new generation of Vancouver artists experimenting with themes in contemporary art in the early 1960s, bringing radical ideas of colour, abstraction, and form to the public eye at the same time that Vancouver was becoming a burgeoning artistic centre.