Robyn Denny (b. 1930)

The present work is from the same period as Painting, 1959, in the Tate Collection. In 1959 Denny was still concerned with the subject of layering or obliterating earlier imagery by working on top of it. However, he was beginning to dispense with letters and numbers which had been the predominant forms. The work shown here and the example in Tate have flashes of colour that are allowed to gleam, scarcely visible, beneath the freely brushed on layers of black gouache. The artist said that he wanted the spectator to consider such concealment with an almost archaeological interest.