Patrick Heron

Waddington Galleries, London
Tooth Galleries, London
Heinz Art Collection

London, Waddington Galleries, Patrick Heron: Painting 1971-1975, May 1975, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue (unnumbered);
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 10, 1975;
Pittsburgh, The Carnegie Institute, details untraced;
Austin, Texas, The University of Texas Art Museum, Paintings by Patrick Heron 1965 -1977, no.16, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.

Patrick Heron, The Colour of Colour, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin 1979, illustrated (unnumbered);
Mel Gooding, Patrick Heron, Phaidon, 1994, illustrated p.200.

 

 

The upper left corner undulates very slightly but otherwise the canvas is in good original condition. There is a tiny spot of paint loss along the right edge in the top right corner. There are a few specks of surface matter along the right edge. There are areas of light surface dirt in places. There is no sign of retouching under ultra-violet light. Held in a simple, gilded frame. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 5381 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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Throughout Heron's oeuvre, one is always aware of a sense of continual development, of never letting an idea or theme become stale or underexplored. His investigations into every idea produced a fecundity of invention that may in part contribute to his painting's perpetual appeal and refusal to appear locked into the period that created it. Despite the apparent differences between the paintings of the 1950s and those of the following decades, the underlying exploration of the artist's fascination with colour and its possibilities led to the creation of a body of work that is remarkably rich.

After the complexity of the paintings in the late 1950s, Heron gradually simplified both the forms and palette he was employing, but as the possibilities took real form, the reintroduction of a wider repertoire built the richness of the images until we reach the riot of colour and form that is Fourteen Discs: July 20 1963 or Discs Escaping: 1964. The concurrent development of a new approach to the application of the paint, using softer brushes and a more liquid paint without overpainting brought a new form of investigation and in works such Dark Purple and Ceruleum: May 1965 (see lot 62), the purity of the effect of the meeting points of two contrasting colours was brought to the fore. Again Heron was able to gradually build upon this foundation, steadily increasing the number of colours involved in each work, developing the complexity of the forms and then beginning to overlay the colours across each other. Whilst the earlier examples of the 'wobbly hard-edge' paintings had drawn their effectiveness from the edges of each field of colour creating spatial and optical effects, the later paintings, such as Allover Reds, Green and Orange: April 1972 – September 1974, added yet more richness and contrast to the images, the colours operating both with and against their neighbours to enliven the picture plane.

In the present work, the opulence of the lush paint seen on the surface at close quarters is mirrored by the density and power of the colours whose subtle vibrations against each other set up a tense balance within the image.