A new landscape orientation in Jaray’s work was introduced with Garden of Anna (1966), and this wider perspective was adopted and extended in Rialto (1966). The sheer breadth of this canvas brings to mind the majestic span of Venice's iconic bridge. The wide composition emerged through preparatory drawings, with points of geometry determining the ultimate format of the work. Rialto shares compositional similarities with the mural that Jaray was commissioned to produce for the British Pavilion at Montreal’s Exposition 67. Measuring 10 by 40 feet, this epic work complemented the long and narrow layout of the space. As Jaray explained: ‘The final design, changes as one walks along it. From the side the directions clarify — like the skull in Holbein’s Ambassadors — and each area moves and changes and in turn becomes part of the next.’ The Montreal mural was a mature, confident and ambitious painting, embracing site and context and anticipating the large-scale public commissions that Jaray would undertake in the 1980s and 1990s.

Natalie Rudd