The Highway Paintings

Oeno Gallery presents The Highway Paintings until October 10.

In 1969, Milly Ristvedt took an impromptu road trip from Toronto to Montreal. She sat alone in the back seat, observing the spring fields, shut out of conversation by the roar of the motor. When she came back, she created the Highway paintings in her Wolseley street studio that she shared with her friend and mentor, Jack Bush. The paintings were hard-edged, precise, a sharp turn in her work, and unlike anything her contemporaries in Toronto were doing at the time. Shortly after they were completed, she moved to Montreal, leaving a friend to pack up her studio and ship the contents. The Highway paintings appeared to have been lost. Fifty years pass. Then last fall, while rummaging around in her home studio in Tamworth, Ristvedt came upon an unfamiliar roll of canvas. Voilà – this extraordinary exhibition which is a missing piece in the still-evolving historical record of contemporary Canadian art.

2274 County Road 1, Bloomfield