Dimensions: support: 2540 x 3759 mm
Copyright: © William Turnbull | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: So here we have William Turnbull's "No. 1," a large-scale painting with a dominant blue field and a green stripe. It's deceptively simple. What can you tell me about the creation and context of this seemingly minimalist work? Curator: Let's consider Turnbull's process. How does the application of paint, the scale of the canvas, and the use of color challenge traditional notions of painting as skilled craftsmanship? Is it closer to industrial production? Editor: So you're saying the focus shifts from skillful artistry to the materiality and production of the piece itself? Curator: Precisely. By examining the "how" of its making, we begin to unpack assumptions about artistic labor and the value placed on the unique, handmade object. Something to consider. Editor: I never thought about abstract paintings in terms of labor before. Thanks! Curator: My pleasure!
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In this two-canvas painting Turnbull aimed to bring two colours together without creating shapes. He wrote in 1963: 'I am concerned with the canvas as a continuous field, where the edge created by the meeting of coloured areas is more the tension in a field than the boundary of a shape.' Each canvas can be seen not only as a container of colour but also as a unit or self-sufficient entity. Aiming to emphasise the physical relationship between a spectator and a work of art, Turnbull allowed the colours in his paintings of this period to fill the viewer's entire field of vision. Gallery label, September 2004
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