PROVENANCE
Jessie Binning, Vancouver
Estate of O.J. Firestone, Ottawa
Important Canadian Art, Sotheby’s Canada in association with Ritchie’s, May 26, 2008, lot 53, reproduced front cover
The Collection of Torben V. Kristiansen, Vancouver

LITERATURE
B.C. Binning: A Retrospective, UBC Fine Arts Gallery, 1973, reproduced page 28 and listed page 35

EXHIBITED
UBC Fine Arts Gallery, Vancouver, B.C. Binning: A Retrospective, March 13 – 31, 1973, catalogue #51

In the later 1950s, B.C. Binning began to move his work away from the more geometrical shapes that had dominated his painting during the previous decade. He devoted more time to drawing on the canvas and developed an interest in modulated surfaces that contain more than one colour. This newer interest is seen in the striking canvas Black Reflection, from 1960. Included in Binning’s first retrospective, the canvas relies on a more subtle handling of paint than what is often seen in the artist’s earlier works. Three areas employ mottled white and yellow, and a similar underlying texture is seen in the blue “sky.” This reading is contradicted by the large areas of flat colour—the expanse of yellow in the lower part of the composition and the two orange sections, embraced by the slender black linear pattern that suggests the leading of a stained-glass window.

There are allusions to landscape: we see what appears to be a yellow sun in a dark blue sky, but the “landscape” below is more easily read as an abstract pattern. The black circle below the yellow sun may be the reflection alluded to in Binning’s title for the work. Clearly there are elements of landscape in this composition, but equally there are elements—the delicate linear pattern and the large flat colour areas—that are more easily read as abstraction. This very uncertainty displays Binning’s skills as a painter: he undoubtedly wants us to read the work as occupying a space between realism and abstraction. By doing so, the painting suggests and, at once, denies the third dimension.

Binning is distinctly aware of the power derived from this oscillation between suggestion and denial. The work has a strong decorative power but is firmly grounded in his appreciation of the natural world, which Binning both acknowledges and refutes in this image. Black Reflection reveals Binning’s understanding of nature and his admiration for the currents of abstraction, both of which this painting celebrates.

Binning was familiar with the history of modernist painting—his duties as a teacher made this knowledge essential for his work. At the same time, his deep affection for the outdoors (he was, for example, a keen sailor) has deeply inflected this work. The drama of the image is that it embraces both the natural world and abstraction.

We thank Ian M. Thom, Senior Curator—Historical at the Vancouver Art Gallery from 1988 to 2018, for contributing the above essay. Thom is the co-author of B.C. Binning, published in 2006.

For the biography on Torben V. Kristiansen in PDF format, please click here.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars