Paul Feiler (b. 1918)

As a child, Feiler spent many holidays in the Bavarian Alps; the mountain landscape, with its tricks of scale and confusing expanses of snow, had a lasting effect on his way of seeing. This uncertainty is reflected in his use of strong contrasting colours. His paintings from the mid 1950s are compositions which verge on the abstract, with heavy dark verticals obscuring and concealing the images. In a review of Feiler's third exhibition at the Redfern Gallery, Pierre Rouve commented that his paintings of this date are '[a] blend of primary force and aesthetic sophistication' (P. Rouve, Art News & Review, 13 October 1956, p. 7).