Will Barnet (American, 1911-2012) Dialogue in Yellow, 1969 Oil on canvas 32-3/4 x 57 inches (83.2 x 144.8 cm) Signed lower right: Will Barnet Signed and dated on reverse: Will Barnet / Spring - Summer- Fall 1969 PROVENANCE: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York; Private collection, Rolling Hills, California, acquired from the above, circa 1960s; By descent to the present owner. EXHIBITED: (probably) Fairweather Hardin Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 1971. In 1965, Una Johnson, the artist's biographer, wrote, "Barnet's personal life and his professional life are deeply intertwined—one cannot exist without the other . . . He has always gained inspiration in the milieu of children growing up among the pleasant confusion and color of a succession of parrots, tropical fish, sedate cats and the exotic greenery of a variety of flourishing plants." Nowhere is this practice more evident than in Dialogue in Yellow. The young girl seated is assumed to be the artist's daughter, Ona, who appears frequently throughout his work. Barnet reduces the scene to its essential elements, focusing on the quiet exchange between figure and animal. The composition is spare and controlled, yet deeply personal, reflecting the artist's tendency to draw from intimate, domestic moments and elevate them into enduring visual statements. Robert Doty discusses Barnet's work from the 1960s, a period that marked a notable shift in the character of his imagery: "Color was limited . . . and that dependence on the interpretation of real things became stronger as the figure came back to become the central theme of his work . . . His paintings and prints from this period utilized areas of color with bodies and limbs placed so as to suggest curving linear rhythms which became a decorative pattern. Each area of color was rendered in elegant and muted tones, unrelieved by shading of any kind. Color was used descriptively while the arrangement of form established the design. The general effect was a simplicity of effort which has not many parallels in the history of American figure painting and printmaking" (R. Doty, Will Barnet at Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1984, n.p.). In Dialogue in Yellow, this evolution is clearly visible: the flattened planes of color, the restrained palette, and the rhythmic contour of the figure coalesce into a composition that is formally rigorous and quietly evocative, demonstrating Barnet's mature synthesis of observation and abstraction. HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

(probably) Fairweather Hardin Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 1971.

Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York; Private collection, Rolling Hills, California, acquired from the above, circa 1960s; By descent to the present owner.

Condition report available upon request.
Framed Dimensions 33.5 X 58 Inches