Spector, 1960 by Harold Barling Town
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Harold Town
Spector, 1960
oil on board
signed and dated 1960 lower right
46.5 x 30 in ( 118.1 x 76.2 cm )
Auction Estimate: $12,000.00 - $15,000.00
Mazelow Gallery, Toronto
The Vincent Price Collection for Sears
Private Collection
Andrew Auctions, auction, Toronto, 1999
Joan Murray, Whitby
Private Collection
Critics have named his Painters Eleven period as his most significant, but his work was highly diverse, as revealed in a retrospective of 1986. What obsessed Town was panache or "style," having fun and a feeling of growth and movement. The mark of a good Town is a sort of motor force that races within the confines of his subject. He had himself an almost demonic energy, swinging from pillar to post, but the viewer could never doubt the sense of invention in his different series, from his Spectors in 1960, one of which, "The Spector No. 3", won the Canada Council Purchase Award at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 77th Annual Spring Exhibition, to the paintings he titled "Tyranny of the Corner", his collages, his minimal and psychedelic period, his Stretches, his Snaps, his Toy Horses, and more. Clearly, Town ventured into the brave new world of modern art in Canada with a positive assertiveness, giving his motifs the right emphatic power.
Vincent Price would have been delighted by the work and purchased it for the Sears Price Collection because of its high quality. He also may have been intrigued by the painting because of its subject, since as a movie actor his career was associated with the burgeoning genres of horror, mystery and science fiction. As a lifelong collector, he had learned to buy art extremely well, and in developing the Vincent Price Collection for Sears, he sought to combine the great masters, such as Rembrandt and Picasso, with the best contemporary artists.
During the 1960s, Vincent Price was perhaps the most visible and vocal spokesperson for the visual arts in the United States. The purchase of "Spector" by this famous and sophisticated public figure suggests its importance to Canadian art.
Like other work in the 1960s, the pictorial space is divided into distinct areas. The work has a dominant, centralizing form, which gathers up the glowing colour, rich texture and fierce painterly activity. In "Spector", Town critically confronted the question of surface and structure, animating them to assist in his own way with challenging the central image so much a part of his work, that of other members of Painters Eleven and painters worldwide.
We extend our thanks to Joan Murray, Canadian art historian, for contributing the preceding essay.
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Harold Barling Town
(1924 - 1990) Painters Eleven, OSA, RCA
A lifelong Torontonian, Harold Town was one of Canada’s foremost abstract expressionists. After graduating from the Ontario College of Arts (now, OCAD University), he worked as a commercial illustrator for many years. In 1954, he became a founding member of the experimental painter’s group, Painters Eleven, a name he coined, himself, along with Jack Bush and Jock MacDonald.
Town’s work went beyond paint, though: he experimented with all kinds of different methods and materials. He often employed a lithography machine to ink his paper in different ways (his single autographic prints). A propane blow torch was occasionally used to burn his paper or canvas. And he particularly loved collage, stating, “it’s marvelous to think of the garbage of our age becoming the art of our time.” According to Gerta Moray, these collages are closely connected to his abstract expressionist painting: “the compositional modes of his collages share the aesthetic of his paintings: they spread out to fill the surface yet are given focus as configurations by areas of drawing in ink or paint.”
Two of Town’s single autographic prints were the first works by the artist to be acquired by the National Gallery of Canada. The NGC then selected him to represent Canada at the 1956 Venice Biennale, along with Jack Shadbolt and Louis Archambault.
By the end of the 1960s, Town had exhibited his work internationally and represented Canada at the Venice Biennale twice. He garnered covers of Maclean’s and Time magazines and became a hero of Canadian art. At one point his name was “synonymous with art in Toronto.” He received an honourary doctorate from York University and the Order of Canada.
In the 1970s, Town faced criticism for remaining in Toronto instead of going to New York to pursue Pop Art and minimalism. Town asserted that these claims by art critics suggested a subservience to the New York trends. He remained true to his roots in Toronto.
In the 1980s, Town returned to figurative painting. His bright colours and simple lines were playful, ironic, and influenced by folk art. In his series, Musclemen, he painted body builders in cartoonish proportions and colours, with giant muscles and tiny heads. Apparently, Town “came upon an international bodybuilding competition and was captivated by the human body performing its muscle-bulging poses as living sculpture.” Moray asserts that this series ironically comments on “the masculine ideal in popular culture.” This assertion is made more interesting when considering that he also painted a small number “Muscles Ladies.”
Four years before his death, Town was given a long overdue retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Town’s death in 1990 of cancer was felt profoundly by the artistic community. Pierre Burton wrote “Town was a great artist with an insatiable intellect.” David Burnett, the curator of his retrospective wrote: “Our response to his death must be to begin the process of understanding his achievement as a totality, of facing all of his work in the present” The enticing legacy of his work continues to captivate and intrigue audiences today.
Literature Sources
Iris Nowell, “Harold Town”, Vancouver, 2014, pages 175-78
Gerta Moray, “Harold Town: Life and Works”, Art Canada Institute, 2014 (www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/harold-town)
We extend our thanks to Scarlett Larry, York University graduate student in art history, for writing and contributing this artist biography.
