Sold for: $55,575

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Ontario

LITERATURE
Joan Murray, Kurelek’s Vision of Canada, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1983, page 14

William Kurelek stated, “The single outstanding feature of prairie landscape, just as of the ocean, is expanse.” In Skidooers, Saskatchewan Winter Series he depicted not just an expanse of land, but also a brilliant turquoise sky that rises above the cloud or fog on the horizon. Evidence of life emerges from the panorama – three people on skidoos and overhead, the passage of a plane, with its implication of Canada’s vastness as a country. Growing up on a Manitoba farm, Kurelek experienced winter as a time of challenging conditions, but he also felt a sense of awe at its beauty. With winter came opportunity for recreation, hence the skidooers playfully criss-crossing the snowy field. Kurelek’s great sensitivity to detail manifests in the delicate stems of plants poking through the surface of the snow, the patterns of the skidoo tracks, the plane’s contrail and the lines of the cross-like power pole. Nostalgia is present in Kurelek’s Prairie works through the accessing of his early memories, and here they resonate with a sense of innocence and joy.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars