Marion Nicoll is widely regarded as one of Alberta’s finest abstract painters. Known for her bold, simplified style, her work poetically captures the elemental aspects of the Albertan landscape and people. Nicoll studied at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and then the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary (now Alberta University of the Arts), before becoming their first female instructor of craft and design in 1933. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, she maintained a traditional approach to representation, and painted almost exclusively naturalistic landscapes. Nicoll’s shift to abstraction in the later part of her career was the result of two main influences: automatic drawing - as introduced by Jock MacDonald, and the 1957 Emma Lake workshop led by Will Barnett. Automatic drawing was a creative revelation to Nicoll - the Surrealist practise of spontaneous creation opened her mind to alternative forms of representation. She later recognized Barnett’s clean and basic forms and colours as the optimal form for her abstract representation, and trips to New York (1958) and Sicily (1959) solidified her commitment to working abstractly.

Nicoll’s abstract works always began with an experience of a place, object or person. In contrast with the emotional spontaneity of Abstract Expressionism, she was extremely thoughtful in her process of conceptualization. She would meditate on the experience, sketching and experimenting to distill its essential aspects. From 1959 onward, Nicoll established her own visual vocabulary of carefully arranged spheres, totemic figures or hieroglyphic shapes. She avoided colour gradation, instead favouring interlocking forms, imbuing her work with a sense of sureness and clarity. The early 1960s marked a period of monumental artistic production a Nicoll, as she began to employ her new abstract vocabulary to describe her experiences of Alberta. Although a specific title of Lot 722 is not known, the palette and structural elements may relate to Nicoll’s Alberta Series (1960-62). This bold and ambitious work offers a rare opportunity to acquire a small-scale oil painting from the artist's most celebrated period.