One of the giants of twentieth century Canadian painting, Guido Molinari came of age in Montreal, at a time when the avant-garde was dominated by Les Automatistes. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and the School of Art and Design at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, but it was his first trip to New York in 1955, that gave decisive direction to his career. There, he saw the work of Vassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. In 1955-56, Molinari produced a series of black and white paintings that moved beyond the traditional concepts of figure and ground. By the early 1960s Molinari had achieved his mature style, eliminating the horizontal entirely and reintroducing colour in vertical bands of equal width. From that point on, Molinari focused his attention rigorously on the notion of space as created by the rhythmic interaction of colour and plane. Untitled is a splendid example. The painting was part of an exchange of works between Molinari and fellow artist Gunter Nolte.