About this lot

Description

Horizontal Yellow, 1964 oil on canvas 30 x 40.5cm

Footnote: Provenance: The John Ady Collection The present lot is to be sold for the benefit of Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge Composed from abstracted shapes and rendered in a cool, tempered palette, Horizontal Yellow, was created during the period, between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s, when Feiler was at the height of his free, gestural abstraction and most closely connected to the Cornish landscape. So captivated was Feiler by Cornwall’s secretive coves and rugged, vertiginous cliffs that in 1953, together with his wife, he purchased a disused chapel and moved to Kerris, near Penzance. Feiler began teaching at Terry Frost’s St Ives Summer School, and his works were soon being selected for important exhibitions, including the British Council’s British Abstract Paintings; for group exhibitions alongside Bryan Wynter, William Scott, and Peter Lanyon; and for the Obelisk Gallery in Washington. From the late-1960s, inspired by the lunar landings and his ambition to capture ‘elusive space’, Feiler’s work became increasingly restrained and refined, with smooth, fastidious brushwork replacing broad strokes and confidently incised marks. Despite his drastically evolving style, the carefully modulated colour palette of slates, brackens and aquas inspired by the Cornish coast, endured throughout.

Condition report: Oil on canvas, attached to a wooden stretcher. The canvas tension is slack leading to undulations across the surface and stretcher bar marks where the canvas is in contact with the wooden frame behind. Along the lower edge this has caused cracking in the paint layer. There are a few scattered losses across the surface and a few scuffs and scratches. Metal frame attached to the sides of the painting with screws.

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