“When one focuses on a detail of a Muscle painting and juxtaposes it with a 1950s abstraction, you can see the same artist, not only in painterly expression but also in his choice of colour palette.”
Christopher Cutts, “Harold Town The Muscle Paintings,” 2023
The Christopher Cutts Gallery is proud to present “Abstraction Figuration,” a celebration of Town’s multifaceted practice, juxtaposing seven never-before-seen 1950s abstracts with the contentious 1980s Muscle paintings.
The controversial icon of Toronto’s 20th century art scene, Harold Town, spent his career experimenting with style and medium. While his peers established their signature styles, Town developed various series in collage, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and painting, ranging from objective to nonobjective. From the launch of his career as the face of Toronto’s abstract expressionists to his 1986 retrospective at the AGO, Town’s work oscillated between abstraction and figuration, from SAPs to Enigmas, Snaps to Eccentrics, and so on.
The 1950s marked the launch of Town’s fame with record-breaking sales, works exhibited across Canada, and the founding of Painters Eleven. The remaining paintings of the era, unexhibited until now, are presented for the first time in the South Gallery.
A collection of the bold 1980s Muscle paintings in the North Gallery is accompanied by the 2023 publication, “Harold Town The Muscle Paintings” with an essay by Gary Michael Dault. Due to significant disdain for the pieces among the Toronto art scene, the artist had to fight to present these figurative works in the AGO retrospective. The works in this exhibition were exhibited for the first time last year, at the Christopher Cutts Gallery.
“Abstraction Figuration” reveres the contrasts in Town’s practice, objective versus nonobjective, praised and criticized, old with new. Join us for the opening reception and be the first to see the recently uncovered 50s abstracts and the synoptic epilogue of the gallery’s 2022 “Muscle Show” – the first ever Muscle paintings exhibition.
