PAINTINGS
Anderson, Guy Irving
U.S. (1906 - 1998)
Through Light, Through Water
1940
Oil on canvas
33 x 39 1/4 x 1 5/8 in. (83.9 x 99.7 x 4.1 cm) frame size; 28 x 34 3/16 in. (71.2 x 86.8 cm) stretcher bar size
Margaret Callahan Memorial Collection, gift of Brian T. Callahan
FA 77.10

In this painting, Guy Anderson evokes an uneven topography or choppy waves through a succession of fragmented, abstracted planes. This compositional approach to depicting space recalls early Cubism and, without a single perspective dominating, suspends the observer among multiple points of view. Straight and curving lines throughout the painting produce a dynamic sense of movement, even turmoil. Color moves the viewer’s eyes as well. The brilliant red that dominates on the left fades to more subdued browns and greens on the right, and the composition is punctuated throughout with black lines and white highlights. References to the human figure emerge from the abstraction — on the left, an arm bent at the elbow mirrors a bowed knee below. Outlined in black, fingers of a right hand splay near the center of the painting. In the end, Anderson’s painting seems caught between a multitude of oppositions: bright and dull, abstract and figural, natural and human. As Portland Art Museum curator and Northwest art scholar Bruce Guenther describes this painting, “the fragmented dreamer floats somewhere between the sky and the water.”

Anderson was one of the so-called Mystic Painters of the Northwest, whose reputations were cemented in a 1953 Life magazine article of the same title. Throughout his long-time association with other Seattle-based painters like Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Mark Tobey, Anderson drew on both European and Asian pictorial traditions, notably the insights, visual forms, and symbols of Brahmanic Hinduism. In doing so, he sought to evoke more than mere surface appearance. Anderson strove to reflect his belief in a universal humanism and a spirituality that unites man and nature. -- Label copy for Vortexhibition Polyphonica: Opus I, October 3, 2009 to February 9, 2010.