Town doesn't seem to have received nearly as many assignments from Canada's major magazines as his fellow Painters Eleven alumni, Oscar Cahén and Jack Bush, but when he did work for Maclean's, it looks like he was entrusted with some fairly daunting assignments!
Artist James Picard has created a tribute page to Harold Town where you can see a portrait of the artist as well as examples of the abstract work for which Town became reknowned.
I find this piece, Mechanical Forest Sound, which Town painted in 1953, very shortly after he had completed all three of these illustrations for Maclean's magazine, provides an interesting juxtaposition. If you look at how Town dealt with the arrangement of colour and shape in these busy illustrations, you can almost see a natural progression leading to the abstract piece.
Take a closer look - view these images at full size in my Harold Town Flickr set.
Hi, I own a few Towns (painting, print, and a puzzle) and I am a huge fan of his stuff. Thanks for this post. The photoset is very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting, anonymous - very glad to hear that!
ReplyDeletelobfkHello, my husband and I looked at your blog with great interest...(Kit Parker) my husband is the youngest son of Al Parker and we are thrilled to see that he still has so many fans after all these years!!!!!
ReplyDeleteyou must see the exhibit at the museum we have loaned many original works that will be on display. Donna a. Parker