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Lot Essay
In 1953, Heron staged the group exhibition Space in colour at the Hanover Gallery, London, in which his own work was shown alongside other St Ives artists. The title, devised by Heron, encapsulates the practice that he was developing in his abstract works of the period.
'What painting is about, and what it consists of, and what it manipulates, and what it explores, and what it can't get away from doing and being is space in colour, and illusion. It is impossible to mark a surface without that mark being a colour immediately in juxtaposition to whatever colour the rest of the surface is, and it immediately jumps out in front of it or sits behind it, or both simultaneously. You can't take a white canvas and make a mark on it without that happening. You have two feelings. You know physically that there is a flat surface with something called paint smudged on it. But at the same time everything that this is on that surface is creating the illusion of space, a pictorial illusion of depth' (interview with Martin Gayford, reproduced in D. Sylvester (ed.), Patrick Heron, London, 1998, p. 27).
Heron had initially begun to paint abstract works during 1952, however, it was not until January 1956 that he concentrated solely on non-representational works that describe depth in areas of pure pigment, sometimes squeezed straight from the tube as exemplified in the present work. Although linear divisions are present the colour no longer hangs from them, as in earlier works inspired by Braque's cubism, but floats freely in soft-edged areas that demonstrate the fluidity of Heron's brushwork.
'What painting is about, and what it consists of, and what it manipulates, and what it explores, and what it can't get away from doing and being is space in colour, and illusion. It is impossible to mark a surface without that mark being a colour immediately in juxtaposition to whatever colour the rest of the surface is, and it immediately jumps out in front of it or sits behind it, or both simultaneously. You can't take a white canvas and make a mark on it without that happening. You have two feelings. You know physically that there is a flat surface with something called paint smudged on it. But at the same time everything that this is on that surface is creating the illusion of space, a pictorial illusion of depth' (interview with Martin Gayford, reproduced in D. Sylvester (ed.), Patrick Heron, London, 1998, p. 27).
Heron had initially begun to paint abstract works during 1952, however, it was not until January 1956 that he concentrated solely on non-representational works that describe depth in areas of pure pigment, sometimes squeezed straight from the tube as exemplified in the present work. Although linear divisions are present the colour no longer hangs from them, as in earlier works inspired by Braque's cubism, but floats freely in soft-edged areas that demonstrate the fluidity of Heron's brushwork.