Night Sign #2, 1955

Acquired directly from the artist Private Collection, Ontario By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario

“Painters Eleven”, travelling exhibition, 1955-56, exhibited as “Night Signs #3”

Shortly after the founding of Painters Eleven in 1953, Harold Town was experimenting with single autographic prints and employed an aggressive all-over brushwork in this early body of work, reflective of the paintings of Arshile Gorky and the use of soft, organic forms by Willem De Kooning. This printmaking technique had a profound impact on Town’s painting practice and resulted in similarly calligraphic strokes of pigment over the support. Town’s practice was still highly individualistic, however, unique from his American contemporaries and fellow Painters Eleven members. His handling of line and use of bold pigments differentiated Town and set the stage for his later body of work. The intermingling of black lines with broad brushstrokes and the soft rounded shapes seen in “Night Sign #2” creates a play between the representational and the abstract, which would become characteristic of Town’s paintings in the 1950s and 1960s. This work is closely related to Town’s 1957 composition “Night and Day Signs”, which follows the compositional arrangement and colour palette of “Night Sign #2”.