Black and white

In 1979 Gordon had an exhibition of smaller black and white oils at galleri Helliggejst in Copenhagen. In his own words he gradually removed colour in his paintings during the 70ties as he found it far more difficult to paint in black and white as it demands a greater control over the whole process.  He did however not completely reject colour:

“I use the Japanese artist Hokusai´s recipes. Hokusai pointed out the differences of the many variations of black he made from Chinese ink. To mix old black add red, to get fresh black you add blue, to mat black blend with white and so on…” 

Here are some examples. The paintings are all quite small and and can be dated from the late 70ties into the early 80ties. As such they represent one of many breaks from Gordon’s lifelong work on the bigger oilpaintings.

It should be added that part of the explanation for the smaller sizes and limitation of colour in his oils in this period, can be that the family fell upon hard times and that Gordon made a “virtue of nessecity”. In any case you can se more examples from the series in the database

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