Untitled, circa 1977, Oil, aluminium paint, and charcoal on canvas, 76 x 50 inches (193 x 127 cm)
Abstract Expressionist painter Michael [Corinne] West embraced avant-garde experimentation throughout her career, which spanned the 1930s through the 1980s. Her vigorous gestural abstractions reflect myriad artistic, philosophical, and musical influences. Always openminded towards new innovations, she was an admirer of electronic sound from its beginnings in the work of French composer Edgard Varèse. In the 1970s, as her painting entered an energetic phase with a new series of calligraphic compositions, she listened to the progressive rock group Emerson, Lake & Palmer, especially their 1973 album Brain Salad Surgery. In an notebook entry from 1974, West noted she worked from “music of most abstract quality—Rock, [John] Cage, Emerson, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, [Teiji] Ito.”