Isabel Norsten
Specialist, Head of Sale
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from a Paradise Valley, AZ collection
Lot 39
RAYMOND JONSON(1891-1982)Polymer No. 7, 1958
17 February 2023, 13:00 PST
Los AngelesSold for US$19,125 inc. premium
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Sharon Squires
Head of Department, Post-War & Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Contemporary Art (US)
Made in California (US)
RAYMOND JONSON (1891-1982)
Polymer No. 7, 1958
signed and dated 'Jonson '58' (lower right); signed again, titled and dated again (on the overlap)
polymer on canvas
50 x 60 in.
127 x 152.4 cm.
signed and dated 'Jonson '58' (lower right); signed again, titled and dated again (on the overlap)
polymer on canvas
50 x 60 in.
127 x 152.4 cm.
Footnotes
Provenance
Gerald P. Peters Fine American Paintings, Santa Fe
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Artist, educator, innovator, and curator Raymond Jonson was a founding member of the Transcendental Painting Group in Santa Fe, which has been the subject of significant museum exhibitions in recent years, most recently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Born to Swedish immigrants in Iowa, Jonson grew up in Portland, Oregon. He initially enrolled at the Portland Art School but moved to Chicago to attend the Art Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts. Notably, Jonson saw the Armory Show when it traveled to Chicago in 1913. The exhibition was a pivotal moment for the artist and exposed him to cubist and futurist paintings for the first time, particularly the work of Wassily Kandinsky.
As his career progressed, representational landscapes and portraiture were increasingly abandoned for abstract compositions that captured rhythm, order, spirituality, the subconscious, and symbolism. In the present work and other pieces from 1958, Jonson experimented with various paint applications and added aggregates to create texture, including sawdust, sand, wood shavings, and powdered Plexiglas. According to Jonson's own notes, the red and green shapes were sprayed with a matte varnish. Jonson writes, "No matter how many layers or method of application or the interval of time there is between applying the [polymer] layers they all become welded together in minutes and should not crack. Being free of oils and their varnishes they cannot change in value or color due to them. So here is the superior medium of all time."
In the present lot, Jonson uses bold and contrasting colors to add movement and vibrancy to the organic, abstract shapes. The physical and visual texture and patterning in the composition are indicative of Jonson's experimentation and delight in the medium and epitomize the spatial and philosophical ideas that Jonson focused on in his mature artistic period. "Some of us want to do the same thing with color, line, and shape that a musician can do with sound. We want to compose independent of imitation and to express in plastic form the inner significance of vibrations and a certain sense of cosmic rightness through the functioning of intellect and the subconscious." (The Art of Raymond Jonson Painter, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1976, p, 105)