Jack Clemente

Mineral Efflorescence

1958

Not on display

Artist: Jack Clemente 1926–1974
Original title: Floraison minerale
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 1457 x 1137 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1959
Reference: T00235

Catalogue entry

Jack Clemente 1926-1974

T00235 Floraison minerale (Mineral Efflorescence) 1958

Inscribed 'Clemente' on back of canvas
Oil on canvas, 57 3/8 x 44 3/4 (145.8 x 113.5)
Presented by Mr and Mrs Charles Damiano 1959
Prov: Mr and Mrs Charles Damiano, London (purchased from the artist)
Exh: Paintings from the Damiano Collection, ICA, London, January 1959 (27)

Painted in November 1958. The artist said that he gave it this title because he thought of it as a kind of forest of stone, alive like a true forest (letter of 11 March 1959).

The medium employed is oil paint made harder by the addition of powder colour used in preparing oil colours. This was to produce the right consistency for work with a palette knife. When the first layer had dried, he worked on it with brushes, using a diluted solution of colour and varnish.

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.127-8, reproduced p.127