b'Harold Town: Uneasy Emperor Harold Barling Town (19241990) began his artistic career as an illustrator, like many Toronto artists in the 1950s. He joined the Painters Eleven (and even coined the name) alongside such artists as Jack Bush, William Ronald, and Kazuo Nakamura with their first exhibition at in the Roberts Gallery in 1954. Influenced by the Old Masters as well as Picasso, and contemporaries such as Willem de Kooning, Town was known as an artist who embraced a variety of mediums and styles. It was his Abstract Expressionist work from the 1950s and 1960s, however, that Town received the most renown. After the Painters Eleven exhibition he began showing work at Laing Galleries, Jerold Morris in Toronto and exhibiting at Emile Borduas gallery in Montreal. His artwork was collected by both public institutions, corporate and private collectors. It was at this time too that his work was recognized at an international level as well: Town represented Canada in the 1956 and 1964 at the Venice Biennale, as well as the Sao Paulo Biennials in 1957 and 1961. Uneasy Emperor is an excellent example of Towns Abstract Expressionist work, and part of his Big Attack paintings. These canvases are characterized by large swaths of black with bursts of colour and architectonic elements with drawn elements added to the painting using a paintbrush. The paintings delve into personal memories or the sensations in the creation of the work. There were also a protagonists in these works as well as Gerta Moray in Harold Town: Life and Work notes, that a persisting theme was of the hero, sometimes legendary, but more often contemporary: baseball pitcher, aviator, architect, artist. Uneasy Emperor was included in the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1961, as well as the Art Gallery of Windsors Retrospective of Towns work in 1975 and exhibited at Queens Park in 1976.'