Sold for: $8,190

PROVENANCE
Laing Galleries, Toronto
Private Collection, Ontario, acquired from the above in 1949
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 23, 2007, lot 200
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Peter Varley, Frederick H. Varley, 1983, a similar drawing of Vera entitled Portrait No. 2, in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, reproduced page 116
Maria Tippett, Stormy Weather: F.H. Varley - A Biography, 1998, page 186

In 1926, Vera Weatherbie took a drawing class with Frederick Varley at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts. By 1929, their relationship had intensified, and Weatherbie became Varley’s close friend and confidante. Weatherbie was an artist in her own right - they shared ideas about art - and Varley acknowledged that she influenced his colour palette. Weatherbie had a charismatic beauty that drew Varley to draw and paint her; she was more than just a model - she was his muse. She is present in some of his most renowned works, including Dhârâna, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Regarding Varley’s drawings of Vera, Maria Tippett writes that they “possess the skill and bravado of an Old Master drawing. As drawn by Varley, Weatherbie’s face also has an uncanny resemblance to the goddess in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (1482) and to the Madonna in Rubens’s The Adoration of the Magi.” In this sublime drawing, Vera’s gaze is warm and intimate, and in her vibrant presence we sense Varley’s great romantic regard for her.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars