Col Jordan : Delta, 1967
Channel: Broken Hill City Art Gallery
Date: 2020-04-15

Col Jordan is a contemporary painter and sculptor, who was born in 1935 in Sydney. In 1967 Jordan, along with two other young artists – Ken Reinhard and Sydney Ball – introduced hard edge optical painting to Australia with an exhibition entitled “Engine”. 

Hard edge painting is a style of geometrically abstract or optical art where the colours in the work change abruptly, without blending into each other and the areas of colour themselves are usually stark.

Jordan says about this painting “As you have probably guessed the title comes from its resemblance to a river delta seen from above, but the title is descriptive of an essentially abstract image, not a phenomenon of landscape."

Col Jordan’s works are in many public and private collections including The National Gallery of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia and our very own Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery.


Delta, 1967
Col Jordan (1935 - )
acrylic on canvas board
Donated by Macquarie Galleries Sydney, 1984
BHRAG Collection 1984.0013
© Col Jordan, used with permission