Gordon Rayner, Drumstick

Lot description

Gordon Rayner was born in 1935 in Toronto. Renowned for his manipulation of painting materials, Rayner has been called “the carpenter” of contemporary Canadian art. He learned his craft from his father, a landscape painter, and worked in various commercial art firms, including Wookey, Bush and Winter with Jack Bush. An exhibition of William Ronald’s work at Toronto’s Hart House turned his attention to abstraction. Rayner’s early 1960s work, with its juxtaposed materials, experiments in canvas shape and sense of humour, reflects the neo-dada mood then prevalent in Toronto. In time he became a sumptuous painter of Canadian landscape, especially the area around Magnetawan, Ontario, where he had a cabin. Rayner has said, “I took the AJB there a couple of times and I’ll never forget the tiny rowboat struggling across the river, barely above the waterline, laden down with the complete band, including a saxophone, trombones, a contrabass, and a whole set of drums." Created as part of the limited edition series of the Artists Jazz Band, 1974 Isaacs Gallery, Toronto. The prints all relate to the theme of jazz. A complete portfolio of all nine prints is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. The Artists’ Jazz Band itself was a pioneering Canadian free-jazz group initially composed of Toronto visual artists associated with the abstract-expressionist movement of the late 1950s. Collectively self-taught, it was formed in 1962 in a studio over the First Floor [jazz] Club by Dennis Burton, who played saxophone, and Richard Gorman, who played bass — both were members only briefly — with Graham Coughtry (trombone), Nobuo Kubota, (saxophones), Robert Markle (tenor saxophone and piano), and Gordon Rayner (drums). It included on a casual basis many other artists and musicians, including Bill Smith, Michael Snow, the bassist Jim Jones, and the guitarist Gerald McAdam.