Acrylic on cotton canvas, 1974. 1562x546 mm; 61 1/2x21 1/2 inches. Signed, titled and dated "March 1974" in green ink, upper right verso.
Provenance: acquired at Bonham's, Knightsbridge, August 19, 2009; private collection, New Jersey.
This vertical abstraction by Frank Bowling is a striking example of his important mid-1970s series of "poured paintings". Beginning in New York in 1973, the artist used a tilting board platform to control the flow and descent of the acrylic paint vertically down the canvas.
In Late Blue, Bowling experimentally redefines what is the edge of a painting with a good deal of bravado. The yellow vertical stripe that Bowling famously used in Who's Afraid of Barnett Newman, 1968, reappears here. With another vertical stripe of orange, he extends the painting on the right side, incorporating previous staple holes, while adding dashing gestural brush strokes to the left side. Other vertical compositions can be found in such 1974 works as Corinna's Adam and Morning Light. The artist exhibited many of these in a solo exhibition at Noah Goldowsky Gallery in New York in 1974.
