In the early 1970s the Cohens visited the museum in Belgium at the last house of Constant Permeke, the leading Flemish expressionist painter. This picture contains recognisable elements: a church, human figures, a windmill, trees; yet the red sky takes up around three quarters of the composition and the red is so intense that it challenges realism. Here, the title 'frames' the way we view the painting, suggesting the frame is the studio window. But if the view from Permeke's studio is the landscape he looked out at, it's also the way he viewed it; his way of seeing things. Curiously, the band along the horizon seems more representational than the green foreground or red sky. Without it, the mood is De Staël or even Rothko. But Cohen characteristically leaves it in; he wants to see what's being abstracted from. How you get from cow field to colour field. Which is to say that while this picture may be exploring the influence of artists who inspired him, it's also about fending them off, and staking out his own individuality as a painter: saying that when he looked at Permeke's landscape, he wanted to paint it in his own way.
Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe - Between Figuration and Abstraction
Forthcoming exhibition
