Hook

Artist/Creator: Joan Balzar (Artist)
Date: 1968
ID #: BG4365

Physical Description

Medium: acrylic
Support: canvas
Dimensions: 142.9 cm 319.4 cm (Object)
Object Description: Donated by the artist to the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in 2013, Hook perfectly captures the ambition of Canadian art in the mid-1960s. Its large scale and bold incorporation of vibrant optical colours embody the optimism of a nation ready to show itself to the world with Expo ’67. Hook belongs to the more exuberant Op Art branch of the hard-edge Vancouver School (Gordon Smith, Takao Tanabe, Bodo Pfeifer, Michael Morris, Roy Kiyooka, Brian Fisher et al.) that dominated Vancouver painting in the mid-sixties. In 1968, the jury for the 54th Annual Northwest Painting exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum recommended Hook for purchase; in the end, the Museum did not purchase the work as it was too large and they already had a work by Balzar in their collection (Perimeter, 1967).

History

Collection: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Permanent Collection
Credit Line: Gift of the artist, 2013
Related Exhibitions: Becoming Animal/Becoming Landscape: Works from the Collection and Joan Balzar

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