Light at Dawn

About Light at Dawn

Passages of dense black outlined with a whisper of teal are topped with charcoal grey that ends at the center of this canvas tondo by Otto Rogers. Above this horizon line, the sky is brushed with brown, dove grey and crowned with a shape of moss green that hangs like a still cloud. The geometry of the tondo, Italian for round, concentrates attention on the center of the image, making the painting more self-referential.
Rogers' work, rooted in a cubist-constructivist tradition, was recognized by art critic Clement Greenberg in 1963 as having a "fullness of inspiration".

"There are few artists, very few, whose work has about it a kind of magic; they sing their own song. Otto Rogers is one of these special few. I love what he does." ~ Sir Anthony Caro

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.