Iceland

About Iceland

Passages of ice blue and grey move upward to flood a central square that contains an ochre line drawing of a single fish. Ovals in ochre and grey and dots in black, rust and green like bubbles curated across the square picture plane point to the vast expanse of the ocean and northern landscape. Rogers visited Iceland in 1971.

Rogers work, rooted in a modern cubist-constructivist tradition, was recognized by art critic Clement Greenberg in 1963 as having a "fullness of inspiration". In keeping with this sentiment, Rogers' tonal expression in this piece is contemplative, spiritual and uplifting.

Otto Rogers (1935-2019) was born in Saskatchewan and acquired his MA in Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin. He later taught art at the University of Saskatchewan for 30 years. His work is included in more than 30 public collections across Canada, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the McMichael Canadian Collection, and the National Gallery of Canada. Roger’s work is also in the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and the National Gallery of Iceland, as well as numerous private and corporate collections.
Rogers also helped sustain the Emma Lake Workshops, which provide a meeting place for many of North America's most respected visual artists and critics, including Clement Greenberg, Barnett Newman, Jules Olitiski, Kenneth Noland, Jack Shadbolt, and Helen Frankenthaler. In 2007, a book of his work, Otto Donald Rogers, including a foreword by British sculptor Sir Anthony Caro, was published.