Alap, 1967

Minimal, abstract painting by Yves Gaucher with a solid grey background. Six short, thin horizontal lines, painted in two shades of light green, are sparsely arranged near the top and bottom of the piece.

Yves Gaucher, Alap, 1967, acrylic on canvas, 274.3 x 182.9 cm, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton.

Alap is from Gaucher’s Grey on Grey series. The paintings are all composed as uninflected roller-painted fields of grey across which are dispersed thin longer or shorter lines in white or grey tonalities that run strictly parallel to the upper and lower framing edges. Despite their limited means, the emotional range of the paintings is astonishing. The British critic and curator Bryan Robertson describes them as “possibly the most beautiful and original—and awe-inspiring—paintings I’ve seen anywhere since the advent of Pollock and Rothko.”

Gallery

Alap - Art Canada