Harold Town - Canadian Abstract Expressionism Art

 Harold Barling Town (1924 – 1990) was a Canadian abstract painter. He is best known as a member of Painters Eleven a group of abstract artists active in Toronto from 1954-1960. Town coined the name of the group, which was based simply on the number of artists that were present the first meeting.He also worked as an illustrator, a profession he credited with imparting a sense of discipline that would last throughout his entire artistic career.
 “It’s easy to slip into the obvious when talking about Harold Town’s work—his ideas hit with such an impact that the viewer quickly begins babbling wildly about vigour and power and vitality… As you begin to read his paintings and collages carefully, you begin to sense behind them a master draughtsman and a graphic artist of international stature—and Town, as it happens, is both of these… Anyone who puts one word after another and calls it art criticism is tempted to make aesthetic predictions. Since Town—like all good artists—has always been unpredictable, let me skirt possible disaster by saying only that he seems to me now to be an excellent painter, and that his paintings and collages—with their swift, unexpected movements in space and their shattered, swooping shapes—are already as invigorating as anything in Canadian art.”Robert Fulford