Forever Hope

About Forever Hope

This modern abstract is a Harold Feist 'spoke' painting.

Early in his career, Canadian artist Harold Feist was mentored by the famed New York Art critic, Clement Greenberg and the famous American painter, Jules Olitski. Feist was a dedicated modernist whose expressive form displayed an intuitive sense of colour. In the 1970s, he discovered a simple dynamic form that would engage him for years to come. Feist’s innovative use of a spiral spoke-like form gave the artist a formal structure to experiment with. This is one of a series of pieces he created that explores the ‘spoke’ format as defined by colour. Here, fluid expressive ‘spokes’ radiate out from the spiral’s center in a vivid palette of blues, purple, orange, yellow, green and white against a soft neutral background.

"The viewer could look at the picture, see the spokes, see that it all followed more or less a system, then maybe – having been enticed straight in through the front door – see the painting as a painting." Harold Feist

“Feist thought of his radiating format as "dynamic and full of problems" but also as "simple and knowable…like bones or a skeleton," he has said. "Everybody has a skeleton, but the fleshing out can lead to anything from a Muhammad Ali to a Woody Allen." He liked the clarity and intelligibility of the radial structure.” Karen Wilkin, Art Critic

Harold Feist was born in Texas(1945-2021) but held citizenship in both Canada and the U.S. He won a scholarship for the University of Illinois and changed his studies from architecture to fine art, acquiring a master’s at the Maryland Institute College of Art. While pursuing his own art, he took a job teaching at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, followed by the University of Regina and Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. He decided to paint full-time in the late seventies. His work is held in both private and public collections in Canada and the U.S., including the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.