Sold for: $52,250

PROVENANCE
Estate of Dr. Robert H. Hubbard, Ottawa
Private Collection, Burlington, Ontario
Sold sale of Important Canadian Art, Sotheby's Canada, November 27, 1996, lot 210
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
R.H. Hubbard, The Development of Canadian Art, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1964, page 120

EXHIBITED
26th Venice Biennale, 1952, catalogue #76
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Paintings in Ottawa Collections, April 10 - May 6, 1959
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Alfred Pellan Retrospective, 1960 - 1961, traveling to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Musée du Québec, Quebec City; and the Art Gallery of Toronto

Alfred Pellan’s Femme à la perle (Woman with a Pearl) was executed in 1938, during the important and exhilarating period when he lived and worked in Paris. After a critically acclaimed first solo show at the Académie Ranson in 1935, he worked as a graphic designer for the renowned haute couture designer Elsa Schiaparelli. In 1937, one of his paintings was acquired by the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, and another by the Musée de Grenoble. He was included in major group shows, such as Paris Painters of Today in Washington, DC in 1939, alongside Pablo Picasso, André Derain and Salvador Dalí. This stunning portrait, a surrealistic interpretation of the feminine figure, was part of the personal collection of Dr. Robert H. Hubbard, who was Curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada from 1947 to 1954, and Chief Curator from 1954 to 1978. In his book The Development of Canadian Art, Hubbard wrote that Pellan’s “return from Paris to Montreal in 1940 raised a storm in the calm waters of representational painting in Canada…[His works] reflect the genial influence of Miró and Léger, but already his art had a brilliance and conviction of its own.”

All prices are in Canadian Dollars