signed, titled and dated 1978 on the reverse
44 × 38 in (111.8 × 96.5 cm)
Galerie Elca London, Montreal
Private Collection, Montreal
Sotheby's, auction, Toronto, 14 May 1992, lot 93
Private Collection, Toronto
David Burnett, Iskowitz, Toronto, 1982, page 72
Across the pale, atmospheric ground of Autumn H, dating to 1978, irregular patches of blue, green, yellow and violet appear to drift, overlap and recede, creating a sense of movement across the surface. The forms suggest leaves seen from above, but remain deliberately open-ended, allowing colour itself to become the subject. The painting encourages viewers to think of landscape not as a fixed view, but as an expansive field of colour and atmosphere. The violet and purple forms can be read as either positive or negative space, creating a shifting sense of depth and perspective. In this way, Gershon Iskowitz plays with and ultimately inverts the conventions of atmospheric perspective, a device used by landscape painters since the sixteenth century in which lighter, cooler colours recede into the distance while stronger colours appear to advance. In Iskowitz’s abstract works, both possibilities remain open. We might imagine looking down through clouds at the landscape below, or looking upward through clouds toward the sky. Ultimately, however, the composition remains an abstraction, offering the sensation of landscape without referring to any particular observed scene.
