Harold Town

Harold Town ( born June 13, 1924 in Toronto, Ontario, † December 27, 1990 in Peterborough, Ontario) was a Canadian painter and printmaker. He was an important representative of contemporary artistic avant-garde and abstract painting in Canada.

Life and work

Harold Town studied at Western Technical School and from 1943 to 1945 at the Ontario College of Art & Design. In 1953 he co-founded the artist group " Painters Eleven" to the ten other abstract painter from Ontario: Jack Bush, Oscar Cahen, Hortense Gordon, Tom Hodgson, Alexandra Luke, Jock Macdonald, Ray Mead, Kazuo Nakamura, William Ronald and Walter Yarwood included. The group was founded as a reaction against the conservative art scene in Canada, especially in Toronto and existed until 1960.

Harold Town was the driving force of the group, he coined their style and wrote the preface for the exhibition catalogs of Painters Eleven. Town was next to his painting an important graphic designer who created many lithographs and worked as an illustrator of books and magazines.

After the dissolution of Painters Eleven Town was more successful than individual artists. Harold Town worked not only as an artist but also as a critic and author of books and specialist publications. He was thus an influential figure within the art scene in Canada in the 1950s to the 1970s. In the late 1950s the abstract painting of Town got international attention. His work has been shown at major international exhibitions. He was "Aspects 1964" represented by some plants as a participant of the documenta III in Kassel in 1964 in the department. He was the first artist in Canada, which began burned objects as part of his abstract works.

Literature and sources

• Documenta III. International Exhibition; Catalogue: Volume 1: Paintings and Sculpture; Volume 2: Hand drawings; Volume 3: Industrial design, graphic; Kassel / Cologne 1964