
Not on display
- Artist
- Patrick Heron 1920–1999
- Medium
- Oil paint on hardboard
- Dimensions
- Painting: 2438 × 1219 mm
frame: 2470 × 1252 × 51 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1993
- Reference
- T06744
Display caption
One of Heron's early non-figurative 'tachiste' (the French word for blot or mark) paintings in which the partial influence of contemporary American and French abstract styles is evident. For Heron dispensing with figurative imagery was a liberating experience, allowing him to 'deal more directly and inventively... with every single aspect of the painting that is purely pictorial, i.e. the architecture of the canvas, the spatial interrelation of each and every touch (and stroke, or bar) of colour... with a sense of freedom quite denied to me when I still had to keep half an eye on a 'subject' The painting covers an earlier, figurative work, traces of which can be discerned.
Gallery label, September 2004
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Technique and condition
Painted in Roberson's artist's oil colour and Ripolin decorator's paints over an abandoned painting on the smooth face of a hardboard panel. The panel had originally been prepared with a thin coat of lean, watersoluble white primer. The board is supported by a narrow timber framework pinned to the back after painting. The earlier painting was not removed before reversing the board and some of its bold brushwork remains visible in the surface conformation of the present painting.
Painted in slabs of colour often applied in broad brush strokes, the colours are mainly whites, greys, mars black unmixed zinc and cadmium yellows, cadmium red and synthetic ultramarine blue. The variations in the underlying painting and superimposition of new colour has left a surface of variable saturation which is not varnished. Some areas of white primer and earlier thinly scumbled colour remain visible.
The condition of the painting on acquisition reflected its complex structure and history. The back of the degraded hardboard had been stained by water, the timber framework was detaching despite having been repinned and all the edges eroded. The front was covered with dirt and mould spots and scarred by scuffs and gouges. Most seriously, many areas of paint had cracked, begun to detach themselves from the board and in a few areas flaked off in large scales of paint. This had occurred predominantly in the thicker slabs and runs of brittle, black paint. The force of their contraction was sufficient to break the bond between the underlying white primer and the board. In other areas the top paint layer had developed open cracks revealing the colour below as it contracted without detaching from the board.
On acquisition the painting received four main types of treatment. The detaching paint was consolidated, the dirt removed, the board repaired and supported with a new secondary support panel and the majority of losses of paint restored. The general wear to the surface was retained. To provide protection to the friable edges a simple narrow wood frame was fitted.
Roy Perry
1994
Explore
- abstraction(9,883)
-
- from recognisable sources(4,512)
-
- landscape(1,220)
- non-representational(6,713)
-
- colour(2,496)
- irregular forms(2,013)
- garden structures(1,940)
-
- garden(1,192)
- formal qualities(12,721)
You might like
-
Patrick Heron Azalea Garden : May 1956
1956 -
Patrick Heron Horizontal Stripe Painting : November 1957 - January 1958
1957–8 -
Patrick Heron Purple Shape in Blue : 1964
1964 -
Patrick Heron Harbour Window with Two Figures : St Ives : July 1950
1950 -
Patrick Heron Yellow Painting : October 1958 May/June 1959
1958–9 -
Patrick Heron Brown Ground with Soft Red and Green : August 1958 - July 1959
1958–9 -
Patrick Heron Red Garden : 1956
1956 -
Patrick Heron Green and Purple Painting with Blue Disc : May 1960
1960 -
Patrick Heron January 1973 : 7
1973 -
Patrick Heron January 1973 : 2
1973 -
Patrick Heron Scarlet, Lemon and Ultramarine : March 1957
1957 -
Patrick Heron Cadmium with Violet, Scarlet, Emerald, Lemon and Venetian : 1969
1969 -
Patrick Heron Small Red : January 1973 : 2
1973 -
Patrick Heron Small Red : January 1973 : 4
1973 -
Patrick Heron January 1973 : 16
1973