Jericho 1: An Allusion to Barnett Newman (Une allusion à Barnett Newman), 1978

In the late 1970s, Gaucher brought the diagonal back into compositional play, and did so on a grand scale in a series of single or diptych paintings titled Jericho 1, 2, or 3, all subtitled An Allusion to Barnett Newman. Barnett Newman (1905–1970) had played an important role for Gaucher, confirming the validity his experiments with large-scale and simple fields of colour.

The sheer expanse of Gaucher’s first two, diptych Jerichos, their minimal means, and their almost environmental scale can be measured only with the body’s full kinesthetic response.