signed lower left; signed, titled and dated 1978 on the reverse
16 × 20 in (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
Auction Estimate:$4,000 - $6,000
Sale date:May 31, 2016
Price Realized
$7,475
(including Buyer's Premium)
Provenance
Marianne Friedland Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Literature
Gary Michael Dault, "Artist's new works are most handsome", Toronto Star, 25 November, 1978, page D3
Using his signature tones of yellow and ochre, Barker Fairley's “Hilltop Tree” stands in contrast to traditional depictions of the Canadian landscape. With a decidedly more minimalistic approach to a traditional subject matter, the emphasis on line and contour, along with the flatness of forms, offer a simpler account of landscape painting. Compared to the dynamic canvases of Fairley's artistic predecessors, the Group of Seven, the simplicity of form and colour reference similarities to Henri Matisse and American painter Milton Avery. Art critic Gary Michael Dault, reflecting on Fairley's work in 1978 with reference to how simplicity of form and line can have an equal impact to gestural brushstrokes and dynamic scenes, explains that “there are, in fact, viewers who will find them empty and devoid of pictorial incident. But look again at their sensuous completeness.”
