Abstract - Lines and Spaces (1946), 1946

The Estate of Fritz Brandtner, Montreal Kastel Gallery, Montreal Private Collection, Ottawa The Estate of Murray Waddington, Ottawa

Jock Macdonald: the inner landscape / a retrospective exhibition, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, travelling to the Art Gallery of Windsor, The Edmonton Art Gallery, The Winnipeg Art Gallery, and The Vancouver Art Gallery, 1981 - 1982, no. 43

Joyce Zemans, Jock Macdonald: the inner landscape / a retrospective exhibition, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1981, pages 116 and 124, reproduced page 125

Jock Macdonald first exhibited his surrealist-inspired “automatic” watercolours in the summer and fall of 1946 in British Columbia, followed by an exhibition in 1947 at the San Francisco Museum of Art. Curator Joyce Zemans writes of the importance of these watercolours, stressing that the artist's “discovery of automatism [was] the key to all of his future works.” Painted in 1946, “Abstract - Lines and Spaces” combines muted and rich tones, the artwork “employ[ing] geometric forms and lines for their own sake, exhibiting a strong concern for plastic organization in the use of of the transparent watercolour medium to create planar relationships.” Quite “reminiscent of Kandinsky's Bauhaus work,” “Abstract - Lines and Spaces” exhibits Macdonald's play of non-objective forms and his virtuosity as a watercolourist.