From the artist, through Gallery A in Sydney, to Robert Klippel; thence by gift.

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Michael Johnson
The Big Zipper, 1968
SOLD
Catalogue number: 24
acrylic on canvas
80.00 x 280.00
unsigned
Michael Johnson, Gallery A, Sydney, November 1968, no. 10
The work can be seen in relation to other works of the period employing his characteristic umber to clash with an electric blue: Frontal II, where the central umber square is flanked on both sides by blue bars, and Chomp, where the composition is radically enlivened by both shaping and by 45 degree tilting of the verticals and horizontals to produce an almost violently diagonal composition. For Frontal II, see Barry Pearce, Michael Johnson, Beagle Press, 2004, plate 11;
For Chomp, see James Gleeson, Modern Painters - 1931-1970, Landsdowne Press, 1971, plate 87.
Both were exhibited in the Field exhibition and illustrated in the catalogue: Lynn, McCaughey and Harpur, the Field, NGV, 1968, p. 32 and 33.
The painting can hang vertically or horizontally
Exhibition Catalogue
Since its establishment in 1984, the Charles Nodrum Gallery’s exhibition program embraces a diversity of media and styles - from painting, sculpture & works on paper to graphics and photography; from figurative, geometric, gestural, surrealist & social comment to installation & conceptually based work.