signed, dated 1978 and inscribed “AC-78-33” on the reverse
41 × 136 in (104.1 × 345.4 cm)
Auction Estimate:$25,000 - $35,000
Sale date:May 20 - 28, 2014
Price Realized
$46,000
(including Buyer's Premium)
Provenance
The Collection of Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc.
Literature
Roald Nasgaard, “Abstract Painting in Canada”, Toronto/Vancouver, 2007, page 290.
Nancy E. Dillow, “William Perehudoff: Recent Paintings”, Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, 1978, page 7.
Saskatoon artist William Perehudoff had a close relationship to the Emma Lake Artists' Workshops. During those held in 1962-63, he was introduced to Post-Painterly Abstraction by art critic Clement Greenberg and American artist Kenneth Noland. From here, he experimented with colour and sought to define his own unique voice. His voice would indeed become persuasive. In “Abstract Painting in Canada”, Nasgaard refers to Perehudoff's paintings' “plays of light and dark, of transparency and opacity [as] subtle and sensuous.” Many of the artist's wide horizontal canvases of the mid-to-late 1970s were constructed of coloured ground transversed by vibrant parallel bars of colour. “AC-78-33” contains what Dillow describes as “the horizontal stretch of colour...[that] vibrates like a violin string, activating the entire canvas.” The long parallel stripes incite thoughts of the prairie landscape; the purity of the level, immense fields which were central to the artist's life and work.
