203 - Merlyn Evans,

Merlyn Evans, British 1910–1973 - Conflict (No.3), 1958-59; oil on canvas, signed and dated lower left 'Evans '58-'59 Winter', 213.5 x 282.1 cm (unframed) (ARR) Provenance: with The New Arts Centre, London, stock no.1664/1 (according to the label on the reverse); with Marlborough Gallery, London (according to the unmarked label on the reverse) Exhibited: Welsh Arts Council, Cardiff, 'Merlyn Evans', cat.no.53 (according to the label attached to the reverse) Note: this extraordinary work is a brilliant example of the geometric style Evans developed in his later career. Central to Evans’s work was an intense and rhythmic use of line, informed by his experiences at Stanley William Hayter’s legendary printmaking studio ‘Aterlier 17’ in Paris and the work of Vorticist artists such as Wyndham Lewis and Lawrence Atkinson. In the post-war era Evans developed from a curvilinear style to the more economic and geometric style seen here in ‘Conflict’. Despite the apparent simplicity of the composition, Evans is able to create a vivid sense of the titular conflict between the two forms. The artist would revisit this composition of two forms against an empty background in two works from 1963 both called ‘Relief’, now in the Arts Council Collection and the National Museum Cardiff.