MARTIN CANIN (1927 - 2000) was an American painter. His works take color, independent of line and figuration, as their subject. Yet, Canin was never satisfied with adopting a serial format favored by Color Field painters and the Washington Color School. Whereas Canin’s earlier work stressed the sheer sensuousness of color interactions through sequences of finely tuned color bands, he subsequently brought a philosophical turn to his work through his shaped paintings, in which the canvas’s physical stretcher takes a shape other than that of a rectangle or square. The color questions must be considered in conjunction with the problems raised by the relationship of color to shaped support and its interaction with the surrounding surface. From this series are, among others, T-shaped paintings inspired by Japanese kimonos and the eccentrically shaped Chad and Peregrine. In Canin’s long career, he has favored bright, vibrant colors, though his palette has occasionally darkened. His work is in the collections of the Tate and the Yale University Art Gallery.

(Source: Artsy)