Page 32 - Studio International - February 1970

8 11
Abraham 1949 Here I 1950
Oil on canvas 96 in high. Bronze
73¾ x 34½ in. Coll: Mr and Mrs Frederick B. Weisman, Beverly
Coll: Museum of Modern Art, New York Hills, California
Philip C. Johnson Fund
12
9 Ulysses 1952
Concord 1949 Oil on canvas
Oil on canvas 132 x 50 in.
90 x 54 in. Coll: Annalee Newman
Coll: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
13
10 Now II 1967
The Wild 1950 Oil on canvas
Oil on canvas 132 x 50 in.
95f x in. Courtesy M. Knoedler & Co. Inc., New York 10
Coll: Museum of Modern Art, New York
Provisional gift and extended loan from the Kulicke
family

8

first one-man show at Betty Parsons in 1950. phere spherically against and beyond the same room in 1951. Similarly characterized
Abraham and Concord are both painted in thin painting's physical limits. Tundra also estab- as personae by widths comprehensible by
oils with the translucency found in old master lishes a sense of place: but more through the human reach, they also work through matte,
techniques of scumbling and glazing; both evenly textured visual brilliance of its large flat-edged verticals distinguished by colour
establish verticals of a visual tangibility field of slightly inflected orange shivering in within the warm end of the spectrum. Each
through edges articulated by value contrasts assonance of hue with the off-centre vertical has one lateral edge supported by a contiguous
shaded with the subtlety of sfumato. But zip of red. Identification with this zip band—that on Adam's left complimenting the
Abraham presents a surface of relatively con- relates oneself with a light-exuding field so thinner band on Eve's right. But they have the
sistent pigmentation; the double bands in much larger than one's lateral reach that the `vive la différence' of timeless mates capable of
Concord are actually strips of masking tape painting holds a terror through total scale living independently—as they do. Adam is
over-laid by the thinly swirled, scrubbed, which Burke would have recognized as 'sub- essentially masculine: an earthy warm surface
brownish-ultramarine paint — using colour lime' rather than 'beautiful'. firmly structured by verticals equidistant
properties of different physical materials Or take Newman's exhibition at Betty Par- from the lateral edges. On the right this
directly in a collage which has nothing to do sons in 1951. It consisted mostly of work done vertical is a line receding in alizarin crimson;
with Cubism. Abraham evokes the solidity in 1950 and early 1951 which had heights of on the left it is an edge of the matte-surfaced
of the mourned great father of a race through about eight feet—just beyond human reach, band of pinkish vermilion overlaid with a
the constancy of its relative darkness and if one credits Corbusier's modular theory. sort of cadmium red light for a pulsating
width of bands taut against the painting's But amongst these works there was a greater spatial glow. Eve is thoroughly feminine : a
surface. Concord establishes a particularly variety—both in individual expression and in total glow of soft-surfaced brilliant cadmium
physical sense of place localized through the interrelation with their environment—than orange expanding beyond its canvas limita-
internal dialogue between the two seemingly was evident in the previous exhibition. Adam tions, a glow given shape solely through the
rounded strips of tape : a place which seems and Eve could be seen as a pair, although shiny translucent, dark alizarin crimson edge
to circulate a light and moisture-filled atmos- they were exhibited on separate walls of the which relates her to the red verticals of the
52