Garden Music

About Garden Music

A staccato of fine horizontal and vertical dashes in crimson, white and turquoise light up a horizontal composition of pastel colors framed in slate blue in this composition by Burton Kramer.

This precise, yet lively composition titled Garden Music reflects the intersection of music, colour and form. Kramer has commented that his lyrical abstractions "do not abstract the experience of reality, as we know it. They provide the viewer with an alternate for reality, just as music often does." Like 20th century European painter Wassily Kandinsky, renowned for his experiments with synesthesia of color and music, Kramer explores the language of visual forms and sound. Kramer trained at Yale University (MFA), The Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology (BSc), The Royal College of Art, London (Fulbright Scholar) and The State University of New York. He gained international success with a number of group and solo exhibitions in North America and Europe. He is one of Canada's most influential graphic designers. Notably, Kramer designed the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation logo in 1974. In 1999, Kramer received the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ from Arts Ontario and in 2002 was awarded ‘The Order of Ontario’ by the Province and an Honorary Doctorate from Ontario College of Art & Design. His work is in many private and public collections including the Royal Ontario Museum.