Two Blues, Two Greys, 1976

Minimalist painting by Yves Gaucher consisting of a wide rectangular canvas divided into four equal horizontal stripes in solid shades of (from top to bottom) dark blue, dark grey, lighter blue, and lighter grey.

Yves Gaucher, Two Blues, Two Greys, 1976, acrylic on canvas, 289.6 x 487.7 cm, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Two Blues, Two Greys consolidates a new direction in Gaucher’s painting. These are not four colours that work together easily; indeed, it is as if by heroic willpower that the painting comes together as a magnificent whole.


Gaucher’s focus is no longer to orchestrate dispersed dynamic movement but to put in concert the tensions created by opposing vast planes of colour of unequal weights and measures. He is interested not in the declaration of individual colours, but in how colours behave in dialogue.

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Two Blues, Two Greys - Art Canada