signed & dated verso; titled on the artist’s and gallery labels verso
Provenance: Drabinsky Gallery, Toronto ON; Masters Gallery, Calgary AB
Note: This work is illustrated on page 177 of “Harold Town” (Iris Nowell; Figure 1 Publishing; 2014).
Harold Town was a founding member of the Abstract Expressionist group Painters Eleven, a term coined by Town for the group’s first show at Roberts Gallery in 1954. Town went on to explore a variety of media and styles during his accomplished career. In “Harold Town, Life and Work” (Art Canada Institute; 2014) author Gerta Moray likens the re-introduction in 1980 of figurative imagery to Town’s paintings, to a rejection of modern abstraction, “a move that had parallels to the ‘return to painting’ that burst upon the international art scene between 1978 and 1981.” Of this series, she says “Town continued this absurdist figurative vein in another late painting series, the Musclemen (1981–84), which reflected ironically on the masculine ideal in popular culture.”
