Lot 26 | Michael Snow 1929 - Canadian oil on canvas Green Skirt A05F-E03193- 001 27.75 x 20 inches 70.5 x 50.8 centimeters signed and dated 1962 Literature:Paul Duval, Four Decades, 1972, page 151 Louise Dompierre, Walking Woman Works: Michael Snow 1961 -
Estimated Price:
£Realised Price:
£
What is this symbol? This symbol indicates that this auction hose has verified this price result.
Michael Snow 1929 - Canadian oil on canvas Green Skirt A05F-E03193- 001 27.75 x 20 inches 70.5 x 50.8 centimeters signed and dated 1962 Literature:Paul Duval, Four Decades, 1972, page 151 Louise Dompierre, Walking Woman Works: Michael Snow 1961 - 1967, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, 1983, reproduced page 90 Dennis Reid, Visual Art: Exploring Plane and Contour, The Drawing, Painting, Collage, Foldage, Photo-Work, Sculpture and Film of Michael Snow from 1951 - 1967, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1994, reproduced page 180 Michael Snow, Biographie of the Walking Woman, 1961-1967, 2004, reproduced Provenance:Poindexter Gallery, New York The Private Collection of Elinor Poindexter, New York Private Collection, Vancouver Exhibited:Poindexter Gallery, January 28 - February 15, 1964, New York, catalogue #27 Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Walking Woman Works: Michael Snow, 1961 - 1967, 1983, traveling to: Hubert F. Johnson Memorial Art Museum, Cornell University, Ithica, New York; Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia; London Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, catalogue #22 Art Gallery of Ontario, Visual Art: Exploring Plane and Contour, The Drawing, Painting, Collage, Foldage, Photo-Work, Sculpture and Film of Michael Snow from 1951 - 1967, 1994, catalogue #46 The starting point and focus for all of Michael Snow's work from 1961 to 1967 is a visual concept that, in all its manifestations, remains one of the most readily identified images produced by a contemporary Canadian artist. In this prodigious enterprise, the object of his vision is of a kind of Everywoman, a form so simple and direct that this anonymous female seems somehow familiar to all who gaze upon her. We have seen Snow's Walking Woman in many costumes - brightly hued or subtly monochromatic, in soft cotton or unyielding aluminum - and in Green Skirt she is painted on canvas in subtle tones of one hue, her body moving forward in graceful mid-stride. First exhibited in Snow's 1962 solo exhibition at the Poindexter Gallery in New York City, Green Skirt entered the private collection of Elinor Poindexter, until it was acquired from her in 1985 following its' exhibition at the Agnes Etherington Gallery, Kingston in 1983. As early as 1972, Paul Duval wrote that, in the Walking Woman series, Snow "...plays upon [his subject] with all the skills and wit at his command without once breaking the original pattern. To devote a large part of one's career to searching out the pictorial possibilities of such a set piece requires an almost puritanical dedication and a sort of intellectual bent, qualities which Snow reveals in all of his undertakings. Snow's wit is not of the bon mot sort, but the deeply considered, though novel, commentary of a committed classic artist." Like all of Snow's Walking Women, Green Skirt, while enigmatic, is easily accessible to all viewers and yet firmly holds its place as one of a series of important conceptual works created by a celebrated artist. Whoever she may be, she is a woman with roots firmly planted in the late 20th century, still striding confidently into the 21st.
