Abstract - the kitchen stove

After winning the New South Wales Society of Artists Travelling Art Scholarship in 1937, Eric Wilson sailed to London and studied at the Royal Academy schools. A brief trip to Paris roused his enthusiasm for modern art, and he soon after
moved to the Westminster School, London, where he studied abstract design, underpinned by cubist philosophy. Wilson then studied at Amédée Ozenfant's Academy of Fine Arts, which strongly influenced him to develop a formalised pictorial manner derived from the cubist tradition.

'Abstract – the kitchen stove' exemplifies this development in Wilson's work - he uses a domestic subject to explore formal elements such as colour, shape, surface patterning and texture. The painting is constructed around lines which delineate a triangular composition, its apex formed by the pot on the stove leading up into the stove-pipe. It demonstrates Wilson's attempt to create an 'orchestration of the formal elements into a symphonic whole'.