Lot 142: RONALD ALBERT MARTIN B. 1943

RONALD ALBERT MARTIN B. 1943 LION HUNT: AFTER DELACROIX 1988-89 signed, titled and dated December 29, 1988 - January 23, 1989 on the stretcher acrylic on canvas 182.9 by 137.2 cm. 72 by 54 in.

Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Toronto, 2007, p. 284

Carmen Lamanna Gallery, Toronto

Collection of Dr. Shirley L. Thomson, Ottawa

Private Collection, New Hamburg

This spectacularly visceral painting was acquired by Dr. Shirley Thomson, who had a remarkable eye and a discerning sense for cutting-edge artists who were likely to endure. Her long and intense discussions with curators at the National Gallery of Canada while she was Director, and her subsequent years as the Director of the Canada Council for the Arts, sharpened her ability to focus on work that was both important and lasting.

Her choice of this painting from among Martin's series of works in this mode was acutely perceptive. The painting is a tour de force in the manipulation of pigment, and a bold and impressive philosophical statement as well. It represents the apogee of an idea that Martin realized in the late 1960s, which was that "the reality of a painting resided entirely in its material nature." This axiom has been evident to a greater or lesser degree in the works he has done since, from the hatch-stroke large watercolours, to the water paintings, to the large, thick black or red paintings of the 1990s to the Colour Extension works, of which this is a major example.