Spring Music

About Spring Music

This modern geometric painting by Burton Kramer was inspired by music.

During his storied decades-long career, Burton Kramer has achieved international recognition as one of Canada’s finest graphic artists and designers. His bold, graphic and vividly colored artwork is inspired by the rhythm of a musical beat. Kramer calls his paintings ‘visual music.’
This new piece reflects Kramer’s modernist sensibilities— clean, crisp-edged graphic shapes in fresh, bright colors—turquoise, sky and deep blue, golden yellow, red, soft pink, purple, lilac, light green and black for contrast.
The curated juxtaposition of shapes—rectangles, lines and squares gives the viewer the impression that the piece has rhythmic movement as if Kramer is playing a tune with paint.

“The paintings do not 'abstract' the experience of reality, as we know it. They provide the viewer with an alternate form of reality, just as music often does.” Burton Kramer

“Kramer’s work can best be described as a collection with active, visual powers that enchants the viewer through geometric shapes, and these are just coming from the mighty hands of a modernist designer and artist.”
Excerpt from The Moderns: Mid-Century American Graphic Design by Steven Heller and Greg D’Onofrio Abrams

Burton Kramer was born in New York City in 1932. He is renowned for designing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation logo in 1974. 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. Kramer has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Arts Ontario, The Order of Ontario by the Province, an Honorary Doctorate from Ontario College of Art & Design, and was named a Member of the Order of Canada. His work has been exhibited in galleries internationally and is held in many private and public collections.