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framed dimensions: 65 x 65 cm
signed lower left
A strong case can be made for John Houston being the greatest expressionist painter Scotland has ever produced. His tireless work ethic, control of technique, on the edge, and sense of the emotional power of colour, exercised over sixty years is an unparalleled contribution. His native Fife was a constant wellspring. It is there on the horizon in much of his work created in East Lothian, and he returned to the landscapes he had walked as a boy throughout his life. The summer fields, hedgerows, birds often rising; the fall of land towards the estuary; the skies lava hot at sunset, but ever changing. This is in his mind’s eye, his passionate place. His colour is never crude and is based in experience but is pushed, like in the work of the Germans he admired: Nolde and Kirchner. Houston worked in all scales, which was a significant professional attribute, each scale of picture giving different challenges. Sometimes there is a struggle towards resolution, his impasto worked over. Other times a painting might be finished in one creative frenzy, and may be left. Sunset Kilconquhar seems one such, so that the moment near sunset is made permanent, each mark telling, each choice of a colour a note in the crescendo delivering a strong emotional punch.
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