Lot 44
JAMES WILLIAMSON GALLOWAY MACDONALD, O.S.A., R.C.A.
Additional Images
Provenance:
Roberts Gallery Limited, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Literature:
Jock MacDonald: The Inner Landscape, A Retrospective Exhibition, Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Windsor, The Edmonton Art Gallery, The Winnipeg Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1981-82, illus. p.146.
Exhibited:
"Jock MacDonald: The Inner Landscape, A Retrospective Exhibition," Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Windsor, The Edmonton Art Gallery, The Winnipeg Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1981-82. cat. no. 69.
Note:
A pioneer of abstract work in Canada, Jock MacDonald was a founding member of Painters Eleven in 1954. He was older than most of the other members by decades, and had had a long career before the group was formed.
Eastern Potentate is from a series of watercolours inspired by a trip to teach at Unesco in Holland in 1949. MacDonald was inspired by a visit to the Nusantara Museum, an Indonesian ethnographic museum in Delft, and visions of Eastern dancers, Buddhas, and batiks remained in his mind when he returned to Canada. He was “transported into a world of fantasy, exotic colour, subtle charm of design and playfulness in subject matter.”1 Over the next three years, he would work on a series that harkens back to his Dutch sojourn.
In this work, batiks are evident in the patterning of colour and the thick black lines of ink. His student, Marion Nicholl, taught him about batik in the summer of 1951. He incorporated the wax resist technique into subsequent works, including Batik (1951), a work made of dye on cotton to experiment with the automatic technique in new ways.
Eastern Potentate is more figurative than many of his automatic abstract works from this time, with the dancing ruler and side table blending into an otherworldly background with swirls and dabs of black ink layered over washes of primary colours.
1J.W.G. Macdonald, “Reflections on a trip to the Canadian International Seminar at Breda, Holland,” Highlights (paper of the Alberta Society of Artists, Calgary, 1950) 4:2, p.6.
CONDITION DETAILS
The work is in excellent condition, colours are fresh. Please note this work has not been examined out of the frame.
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