Lot 17: Michael James Aleck Snow 1929 - Canadian oil on

Michael James Aleck Snow 1929 - Canadian oil on canvas Two 40 x 50 inches 101.6 x 127 centimeters on verso signed, titled, dated September 1960 and inscribed ""42 Dell Park"" Literature:Dennis Reid, Philip Monk and Louise Dompierre, The Michael Snow Project, Art Gallery of Ontario and The Power Plant, 1994, reproduced page 207 Catsou Roberts, editor, Michael Snow Almost Cover to Cover, 2001, essay by Catsou Roberts, page 8 Conversation between Michael Snow and Hri Neil, Toronto, Heffel Gallery Inc., April 1, 2009 Provenance:The Isaacs Gallery Ltd., Toronto Mr. & Mrs. J.R. Colombo, Toronto Private Collection, Toronto Exhibited:The Isaacs Gallery Ltd., Toronto, Michael Snow Solo Exhibition, 1960 The Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto Collects, 1961 Art Gallery of Ontario and The Power Plant, Toronto, The Michael Snow Project: Exploring Plane and Contour, May 11 - June 5, 1994, catalogue #81 Michael Snow's work is internationally recognized and celebrated. A master of media, Snow works in film, video, photography, sound, installation, painting and sculpture, and informing each mode with understanding gained from his exploration of the others. He comments, ".....my paintings are done by a filmmaker, sculpture by a musician, films by a painter.....". With a sly sense of humour, Snow makes art that probes perception, consciously engaging the viewer in his questioning of the act of viewing itself. When asked about how the work Two fits within his oeuvre, Snow connects this early painting to other works from the early 1960s, such as Theory of Love, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Pared down to binaries of positive/negative, foreground/background and push/pull, the piece becomes purely about surface - as the artist states, it "...becomes an object, becomes sculpture." With Two, Snow used a stencil to create the rectangular opening into the central dark red mass, a technique that was to figure prominently in his further explorations of the foreground/background binary in his iconic Walkin Woman series. The reds that dominate the surface are broken by a tracery of subtle craquelure, exposing a dark blue ground. As the painting has aged, Snow's intentional craquelure has evolved, and in his view the result is either a success or failure, based on the viewer's perspective. However, Snow's humorous delivery of his comments on the work made it clear that he considers it a success.