Untitled 1987
by Bob Law
£25,000
Code
10529
Bob Law
Untitled, circa 1987
Black watercolour on paper.
Height: 56 cm
Width: 76 cm
Exhibited:
Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York.
Richard Salmon.
"I have, or I think I have, my perfect work in my mind's eye. To bring that work into reality or existence is another matter - there is always some small flaw. Some improvement to be made. And it is seeking after quality that most interests me. (After all you cannot examine the goods until they are delivered. Which is how one gets into the serial paintings.) The work becomes a very serious trial and examination process in which the artist is solely responsible to himself for the quality and skill within his own mind and correlate the inner spirit with the art he can touch and make." Bob Law, on his Black Paintings, July 1977.
Law moved to St Ives in the 1950s where he became particularly influenced in abstract art after meetings with Peter Lanyon and Ben Nicholson. The New American Painting the seminal Abstract Expressionist show held at the Tate in 1959 was also an important catalyst. Law's creative response to these stimuli was to formulate his own British take on Minimalism and today he is appreciated as the founding father of the movement in the U.K. Particular to his approach to minimalism, and distinct to his US counterparts such as Rothko, Law engaged with and drew on the English landscape as well as his own varied range of idiosyncratic interests. Interests in philosophy, mysticism, alchemy and palaeontology combined with his drive for the reductively essential materialised in the radically monochromatic black canvases that he is most famous for. Rarely ever purely black, these works modulate from blue, to violet and defy photographic reproduction.
Law's series of Black paintings hold a special place within his artistic practice; the series was the focus of his first major solo exhibition '10 Black Paintings 1965-70', held at the Museum of Modern Art , Oxford in 1974.
Invitation card from Law's solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, 1974.
Untitled, circa 1987
Black watercolour on paper.
Height: 56 cm
Width: 76 cm
Exhibited:
Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York.
Richard Salmon.
"I have, or I think I have, my perfect work in my mind's eye. To bring that work into reality or existence is another matter - there is always some small flaw. Some improvement to be made. And it is seeking after quality that most interests me. (After all you cannot examine the goods until they are delivered. Which is how one gets into the serial paintings.) The work becomes a very serious trial and examination process in which the artist is solely responsible to himself for the quality and skill within his own mind and correlate the inner spirit with the art he can touch and make." Bob Law, on his Black Paintings, July 1977.
Law moved to St Ives in the 1950s where he became particularly influenced in abstract art after meetings with Peter Lanyon and Ben Nicholson. The New American Painting the seminal Abstract Expressionist show held at the Tate in 1959 was also an important catalyst. Law's creative response to these stimuli was to formulate his own British take on Minimalism and today he is appreciated as the founding father of the movement in the U.K. Particular to his approach to minimalism, and distinct to his US counterparts such as Rothko, Law engaged with and drew on the English landscape as well as his own varied range of idiosyncratic interests. Interests in philosophy, mysticism, alchemy and palaeontology combined with his drive for the reductively essential materialised in the radically monochromatic black canvases that he is most famous for. Rarely ever purely black, these works modulate from blue, to violet and defy photographic reproduction.
Law's series of Black paintings hold a special place within his artistic practice; the series was the focus of his first major solo exhibition '10 Black Paintings 1965-70', held at the Museum of Modern Art , Oxford in 1974.
Invitation card from Law's solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, 1974.
H 56cm x W 76cm
H 22.06" x W 29.93"
H 22.06" x W 29.93"
