Presented on a tilted diamond-shaped canvas, Untitled, 1967, exemplifies Harold Cohen’s pursuit of
a visually unified painting. A bold black line cuts diagonally across the surface, winding from the
upper right edge to the lower left and dividing the composition into two distinct chromatic zones.
One side is articulated through a speckled green ground layered over the exposed cream canvas,
whilst the other is composed of deep purple splattered across a rich maroon surface. Undisturbed
by these opposing fields, a uniform canopy of perfectly rounded dots extends evenly across the
painting, binding the composition into a coherent visual whole.

Untitled follows the inclusion of two similarly angled rhombus paintings, Sentinel and Consul (both
1966), in the 1966 Venice Biennale. Whilst related in their division of pictorial space, Untitled demonstrates Cohen’s increasing interest in refining and codifying the visual effects of this compositional strategy, an approach that became central to his 1967 solo exhibition at Modern
Art Oxford.

In a 1968 interview for Studio International, Cohen reflected that, until only a few years earlier,
his work had been primarily concerned with drawing, and that the growing centrality of colour
within his practice had emerged gradually - and initially against his own instincts. Whereas line
functioned, for Cohen, as an instrument of separation and division, colour offered the possibility
of cohesion and visual continuity. During 1966–67, he moved from splattering paint toward
increasingly controlled spraying techniques, exploring the optical effects of colour relationships
while seeking to move beyond what he described as merely “edge-to-edge” colour. Rather than
containing colour within fixed boundaries, Cohen sought, in his words, “to get to the state where
the painting disappears and just leaves colour.”

In this respect, Untitled captures a pivotal moment in Cohen’s practice, balancing the structural
logic of line with an increasingly immersive and expansive conception of colour.