Study for Progression of Rectangles

In the early 1950s Antony Hill made a series of sketches and paintings exploring different arrangements of black and white rectangles, progressing along a central horizontal axis. [1] In this sketch on graph paper, Hill tests out the impact of adjusting the sequence. The subtle variations between the different versions of Progression of Rectangles demonstrate Hill’s commitment to a new language of ‘constructionism’ in art, non-figurative works generated from their own internal logic. [2]

In 1954 Hill translated the composition of Progression of Rectangles into his first relief format works, which share the same title. [3] The rectangles are cut in black and white plastic and placed on a transparent sheet, which has been mounted above a plywood base panel using distancing pegs. The relief format introduces a relationship between the different surfaces and planes of Progression of Rectangles that Hill went on to investigate more fully in his consequent constructed reliefs, abandoning painting altogether in early 1956. [4]

Lisa Newby, February 2021

[1] See sketches 31581, 31682 and 31688 in the Sainsbury Centre collection. A version of Progression of Rectangles (1953) in emulsion and canvas was included in Hill’s 1983 retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery and is illustrated in the catalogue. See Anthony Hill, A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (London: Hayward Gallery, 1983), p.23.

[2] For a recent account of Hill’s early constructionist paintings, see Sam Gathercole, ‘The Geometry of Syntactics, Semantics and Pragmatics: Anthony Hill’s Concrete Paintings’, Tate Papers, no.31, Spring 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/31/anthony-hill-concrete-paintings

[3] See 31539 in the Sainsbury Centre Collection.

[4] Alastair Grieve, ‘The development of Anthony Hill’s work from 1950 to the present’ in Anthony Hill, A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (London: Hayward Gallery, 1983), pp. 5-67, (p.18).