Warp

Details

Richard Allen (1933-1999)
Warp
with estate mark 'ENCS1' (on a label attached to the canvas-overlap)
acrylic on canvas
60 x 136 in. (152 x 345.5 cm.)
Painted circa 1970.

Provenance

The artist's estate.
with Offer Waterman, London, where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Matrix, Bristol, Arnolfini Gallery, 1971, illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, Richard Allen A Retrospective, London, Offer Waterman, 2008, no. 14, illustrated.

Exhibited

London, St Katharine's Docks, Match Shed, Richard Allen Exhibition, 1970, catalogue not traced.
Bristol, Arnolfini Gallery, Matrix, 1971: this exhibition travelled to Cardiff, Welsh Arts Council Gallery, September - October 1971; Canterbury, Gulbenkien Theatre Gallery, October - November 1971; and Italy, Verona, Studio La Citta, not numbered.
London, Offer Waterman, Richard Allen A Retrospective, April - May 2008, no. 14.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. All sold and unsold lots marked with a filled square in the catalogue that are not cleared from Christie’s by 5:00 pm on the day of the sale, and all sold and unsold lots not cleared from Christie’s by 5:00 pm on the fifth Friday following the sale, will be removed to the warehouse of ‘Cadogan Tate’. Please note that there will be no charge to purchasers who collect their lots within two weeks of this sale.

Lot Essay

From the late 1960s Allen worked on two-colour stripe acrylic paintings such as the present work. In 1971, he was invited to join a group exploring systemic paintings called Matrix. In Allen's words 'This involved the idea of a recoverable system underlying the construction of the painting' (Exhibition catalogue, Richard Allen A Retrospective, Offer Waterman, London, 2008). `Warp' was included in the first Matrix exhibition in Bristol. The exposure from being involved in this exhibition led to Allen's inclusion in the Systems Exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery the following year.

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