Harold Town Drawings
With an Introduction and Text By Robert Fulford
4to. pp. 191. 195 illustrations, some colour. chronology. index. cloth (spine sunned). dw. (couple chips & tears to extremities, spine sunned). Toronto & Montreal: McClelland and Stewart Limited, [1969].
"A real drawer can never kick the habit," writes Harold Town, "he's an ink junkie for life, and that is never long enough." Town Is nothing not a devotee to his drawing and his tireless energy has resulted in the bestowal of every description imaginable from "Canada's artistic Cassius Clay" to the "one towering genius in Canada."
Here for the first time is a systematic presentation of Town's drawing and the directions in which it has moved. With 195 illustrations in colour and black and white, his extremely rare draughtsmanship has been superbly captured and well represented.
In an introduction that is both entertaining and illuminating, Robert Fulford writes "With Town's drawings... we are invited into the artist's memory and unconscious We are allowed to consider not only masses and lines but dreams and nightmares; indeed we are permitted to examine both a person and an intellectual history."
Drawings is divided into seven suit portfolios, each preceded by a brief governing text by Robert Fulton.
"I cannot remember a time in my life not made more satisfying and complete by drawing," writes Town. "As a child, I drew on walls, streets, my arm, school books, flattened paper bags, other kids' arms, under bridges..."