“I see no trace of the grid and am reassured that
no such ordering device lies beneath what is.” 1
Chris Andrews is pleased to present early drawings by Canadian artist Michael Snow (1928-2023). The exhibition comprises eleven framed drawings alongside a suite of eight unframed works on paper, many presented to the public for the first time here. The drawings date from a period of three years, between 1953-1956, when the artist was in his mid-to-late twenties. During these years, Snow travelled throughout Europe before returning to Toronto, where he later would mount his first exhibition in 1955 at the Hart House, University of Toronto.
The drawings give particular attention to routine and often private endeavors: eating, sitting, drawing, reading, or everyday as it is. There’s an intimacy in this representation of the spaces for life that would infiltrate much of the artist’s oeuvre, and the immediacy of drawing proved an apt medium for the young Snow. Speaking of this period, he noted, “When I was travelling, I used to draw a lot and I had a show of these drawings. I got a phone call from a man I didn’t know. He said that he’d seen the exhibition and liked it very much. He said that he felt that whoever had done these drawings must be interested in the movies. I had to say that, no, I wasn’t especially interested in the movies” 2. The drawings remained a consistent aspect of his practice throughout the 1950s and into the 60s, then was more or less discontinued.
A palpable rejection of any discernible system of perspective, or more broadly, the grid at large is seen throughout. In Still Life with Vase & Fruit, two objects in the foreground, a table and a vase, are depicted in near-contradictory perspectives, becoming untethered from the scene itself. Behind them a figure peers through floating window panes. Elsewhere, four lines in red ink that intersect at their edges suggest the perimeter of a room in Room and Occupants Slightly Condensed. Following an overall economic approach to the lines in the drawings only the most necessary of marks have been produced.
A recurring fascination with the figure and its occupation of space is similarly apparent – both a figure and a dog are seen seated at a dining table, a man is seated in a corner, a living room filled with its guests, slim wooden floorboards run towards a figure reading in front of a window. This foreshadows Snow’s sooncoming expansion into sculpture, installation, and filmic work. Piled furniture is another recurring motif, seen in Attic and More Tables and Chairs. In this compression (of both the furnishings and of the rooms themselves), the viewer must imagine an unseen sequence of events which led us to the arrangements. An animism is imbued onto the objects, a characteristic which was further actualized in Snow’s first film, A to Z (1956), an animated short completed from drawn cut-outs that sees a narrative played by an ensemble of near whimsical objects.
The figures inhabiting the pages are sparingly rendered, often depicted in profile or merely outlined. Stark eyes and strong lines for a nose penetrate a suggested rest of the form. These abridgments foreground the artist’s notable interest in the distillation of the figure, which would become a focus in the coming decade through his seminal Walking Woman series (first beginning in 1961), seeing the figure become reduced even further into pure silhouette.
1 Bernadette Corporation. 2005. Reena Spaulings. Semiotext(e) / Toastink Press.
2 Robert Enright. 2007. The Lord of Missed Rules: An Interview with Michael Snow. Border Crossings.
Michael Snow (b. 1928-d. 2023, Toronto) was a Canadian artist and filmmaker. He received numerous awards throughout his career including the Order of Canada, Gershon Iskowitz Prize, Prix Samuel-de-Champlain, Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres, and the Guggenheim Fellowship.
Recent solo exhibitions include Michael Snow: A Life Survey (1955-2020) at The School, USA (2023), Michael Snow: Closed Circuit at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain (2018); Michael Snow: The Sound of Snow at Culturgest, Lisbon, Portugal (2018); The Viewing of Six New Works, Butler Gallery, The Castle, Kilkenny, Ireland (2016); Sequences at La Virreina Image Centre in Barcelona, Spain (2015); Michael Snow: Photo-Centric at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2014); Michael Snow: Objects of Vision, Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada (2012); Solo Snow: Works of Michael Snow, Akbank Sanat, Turkey (2012); Michael Snow, Vienna Secession, Austria (2012); In the Way, Àngels Barcelona, Barcelona (2011); and Solo Snow, Le Fresnoy, France (2011).
Snow’s work is held in various private and public collections including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montreal; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Ludwig Museum, Cologne and Vienna; and the Musée National d’Art Modern, Centre Pompidou, Paris among others.