Lot 138: BOB LAW

BOB LAW 1934 - 2004 BLACK WATERCOLOUR signed and dated 24.7.87 on the reverse watercolour 56.5 by 75cm.; 22¼ by 29½in.

London, Karsten Schubert, Bob Law: Recent Work, 1988.

Karsten Schubert, London
Private Collection, Australia

Bob Law received little formal education as a child and his artistic training was almost entirely self-taught. He embarked initially on a series of apprenticeships from carpentry to architecture before settling on an artistic career. In 1957 he moved to St Ives, Cornwall where he was encouraged to paint by the avant-garde, such as Ben Nicholson and Peter Lanyon. The minimalist style of Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman were also particular influences and in the mid-1960s he made his best known contribution to Minimalism with a series of 'black' paintings in acrylic. Law's black watercolours were a later continuation of this series which, in an interview in 1989, he recalls: 'include all the colours - red, yellow, blue, green and purple - layers and layers and layers of thin watercolour built up until you get this blackness with all the depth of colour in it.'