W.R. Mitchell & Associates Fine Art Limited, Calgary
Sinai Health Foundation, Toronto
Cowley Abbott, auction, Toronto, September 24, 2020, Lot 16
Private Collection, Ottawa
Literature
David Burnett, “Iskowitz”, Toronto, 1982, page 72
Adele Freedman, “Gershon Iskowitz: Painter of Light”, Toronto/Vancouver, 1982, pages 4, 6, 132 and 148
Roald Nasgaard, “Abstract Painting in Canada”, Toronto/Vancouver, 2007, page 244
Gershon Iskowitz’s quintessential breakthrough was the 1967 helicopter ride over Churchill, Manitoba afforded by a Canada Council grant awarded to the artist. This experience formed the entire body of work Iskowitz would produce as the shift in perspective fundamentally affected Iskowitz’s approach to painting: “The perspective became one of looking down at nature - or it’s metaphorical shorthand, the swirling dots - through endless blankets of grey cloud.” Rather than considering the landscape for its finite representational qualities, the artist, having shifted viewing perspectives, found inspiration in the abstracted coloured forms apparent from the aerial perspective.
Having devoted his practice throughout the 1960s and 1970s to the exploration of light in this new altered perspective, Iskowitz encountered a new challenge in 1981: “He wished to convey‚ ‘a feeling of the night, a feeling of mystery with lots of depth, unity and composition.’... Iskowitz left the age of light behind and entered the era of electricity.” Roald Nasgaard writes that “In the 1980s, Iskowitz upped the ante by electrifying his colours, intensifying their contrasts and hardening the contours of his form.” “Night Blue Red - B” is an excellent example of this artistic transition for the artist.
Hovering in a unique space between abstraction and landscape, “Night Blue Red - B” typifies the artist’s process distilling the “moment when the vision of the landscape, the imagination, and the memory of experiences are united in the intuitive expression of the painting.”
