The Artist
Waddington Galleries, London
Private Collection
John Martin Esq.
Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
Their sale, Sotheby's London, 24th May 1990, lot 737
Gillian Jason Gallery, London, where acquired by the present owner, 7th May 1991 

Edinburgh, Traverse Gallery, Festival Exhibition, 1965, cat. no.52, illustrated;
Edinburgh, Hume Tower, Paintings by Patrick Heron and Bryan Wynter, 30th August - 11th September 1965, cat. no.1;
London, Waddington Galleries, Frost, Heron, Hilton, Wynter, June 1965, cat. no.12;
Warsaw, Richard Demarco Gallery, Z Edynburga Szkocja, 1967, un-numbered exhibition;
Edinburgh, Traverse Gallery, Richard Demarco at the Traverse 1963-66, February 1984, cat. no.15;
London, Tate, Patrick Heron, 25th June - 6th September 1998, cat. no.45, illustrated p.100.

Richard Demarco Inaugural Exhibition, (exh. cat.), 1966, illustrated p.1;
Richard Demarco Exhibition, 1967, illustrated on the cover;
'Patrick Heron - the Development of a Painter,' Studio International, July - August 1967, illustrated p.22;
Mel Gooding, Patrick Heron, Phaidon Press, London, 1994, illustrated p.182.

Original canvas. The canvas undulates very slightly in the upper left corner. There are some old signs of very slight rubbing to the extreme top left corner, only visible upon very close inspection and most probably. This excepting the work appears in very good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals areas of fluorescence and probable retouching to isolated areas around the extreme edge of the canvas, with one or two further traces visible towards the lower half of the composition. These have all been very sensitively executed. Housed in a thin white wooden frame. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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The Estate of Patrick Heron is preparing the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the Artist's work and would like to hear from owners of any works by Patrick Heron, so that these can be included in this comprehensive catalogue. Please write to The Estate of Patrick Heron, c/o Modern & Post-War British Art, Sotheby's, 34-35 New Bond Street, London, W1A 2AA or email at modbrit@laitexier.com

‘The contemplation of pure colour holds pleasures too numerous to name…in fact there is an intense elation in allowing the awareness of colour to flood the mind.’ (Patrick Heron, ‘Colour in My Painting,’ Studio International, December 1969, reprinted in Vivien Knight (ed.), Patrick Heron, London, 1988, p.34).

Heron’s paintings of the late 1960s and early 1970s are probably his most instantly recognisable works, the 'wobbly hard-edge' manner he had perfected allowing him to fully exper🀅iment 🗹with space and colour, the twin concepts that had occupied him since the earliest part of his career. The paintings he produced in this period are mostly of substantial size and were produced in a very specific way, with the forms drawn in very quickly and spontaneously onto the prepared canvas, often in a matter of seconds. Heron recounts that the move from his earlier works was spurred on by a return to drawing- which during the years immediately preceding this change had held for him little interest:

‘The previous period was made up of soft discs and rectangles which could be likened to islands in a sea. Then I began to draw, and draw right up to the edges of the canvas. The painting that started it was Rectilinear Reds and Blues from 1963. I drew it on with soft charcoal, and then rubbed it off, so if you got a pair of specs on you could probably see traces of a drawn line. Then I painted right up to that line with big soft brushes’ (Martin Gayford, ‘“Looking is more interesting than doing anything else, ever": An Interview with Patrick Heron', Patrick Heron, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1998, p.39).

Each colour had to be painted in a single session to ensure that the colours remained uniform, and each is just a single layer of paint with no overlapping. Heron's intention was that the viewer would thus be presented with pure colours in juxtapo🌱sition, the forms and their boundaries affecting the perceived spatial relationships. The scale of these paintings, and thus the visual impact of the meeting points𒊎 of these large areas of vivid colour, is a key element in their success.

As the artist was to observe, the final brushstroke which covered the last trace of the white ground marked the moment at which all the elements came together in balance and the colours began to function with and against each other. The sheer involvement of painting these pictures is clear from a close inspection of the surface, with their network of fiꦉne fluid brushstrokes declaring the joy of painting. This immediacy allows the paintings to carry huge impact and vigour. When seen in the broader context 💟of painting of the period, the vivacity of Heron's art is immediately clear and still looks remarkable at the space of over four decades.