1983.2.12

MediumAcrylic

Technique Painting

TypePaintings

Dimensions 31.5 in W x 23.75 in H (Image)
31.5 in W x 23.75 in H (Frame)

CultureBritish

StatusIn Collection

ProvenanceAlexander and Anne Lowenthal (Gift, 1983)

BibliographyThe five abstract shapes in this work appear smooth and clean, working as inseparable parts of a whole. Their hard edges press against each other but also maintain clear borders, embracing the flat, unmodulated effects of acrylic paint. Bernard Farmer participated in the international trend that New York based critic Clement Greenberg termed post-painterly abstraction. The British-based artist enjoyed a close relationship with the Lowenthal Family, who owned one of the largest collections of the artist’s work – including three paintings by the artist they donated to the University Art Gallery.

Farmer’s practice embraced formal simplicity for its evocative potential. ‘The more simple I can make an image the better I like it… the less can always expand the mind, whereas more either constricts or becomes too much,” the artist once explained. Although this work is resolutely abstract, its title also refers to a vertical line on a map, such as the longitudinal break that runs through Greenwich in London. With its adjoining zones of pink and warm red that seem to cast the surrounding forms in shadow, Farmer’s curved slices might equally suggest such divisions in time and space.

Global Gestures: Post-War Abstraction from the Lowenthal Collection (2.15-3.21.2019)