140 / 250
93
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NORMAN LEWIS (1909 - 1979)
Block Island
.
Oil on linen canvas, 1975. 1295x1626 mm; 51x64 inches. Signed and
dated in oil, lower right.
Provenance: acquired directly from the family of Norman Lewis; Bill
Hodges Gallery, NewYork (1995); private collection, NewYork.
This magnificent blue painting,
Block Island
is the first work on canvas
from Norman Lewis’
Seachange
series to come to auction. Although the
works entitled
Seachange
date from 1975-77, Norman Lewis began this
significant series of works in oil on paper and canvas as early as 1968. He
continued to explore it through the decade until his passing in 1979.
Inspired by his nautical experiences, each is characterized by Lewis’
interlocking composition of curvilinear and circular forms, surrounded
by a deep hue of blue, green, red or even violet.The undulating marine
forms not only convey the beauty found in nature’s abstraction, but make
a powerful statement of how those rhythms affect us. According to Ann
Edison Gibson’s essay
Norman Lewis: Black Paintings, 1946-1977
, this series
is one of the artist’s major achievements: “the Seachanges deserve to be
considered along with Mark Rothko’s late dark paintings, Franz Kline’s
late black-and-color paintings, and Ad Reinhardt’s deeply black square
paintings as landmarks of late Abstract Expressionism.” Gibson p. 26.
[120,000/180,000]