Of his ‘new consciousness’ painting the artist wrote that year, “I think of my paintings as a source of imagery, sometimes that generates imagery rather than contains it. Obviously it is I who have put into them what they contain but I have done so with as little conscious interference as possible, allowing them at every stage in their growth to dictate their own necessities.” This is a distillation of Wynter’s whole approach to painting; directed by his belief that art could only flourish in the absence of conscious interference and that the work itself should have self-generative powers.

At this time Wynter often made preparatory studies in gouache. Black and White Study c. 1958 has all the detail and interwoven complexity of his large ‘new consciousness’ oils, but in miniature form. Seedtime (1958-59) in the Tate collection is a large oil that is similiar in palette and form. 

Black and White Study is a little jewel of a painting formerly with Jonathan Clark who looks after the Bryan Wynter estate.