CC OC RCA
1935 - 2018
Canadian
Preparing to Dress a Chicken
oil on canvas
signed and dated 2003 and on verso titled and dated on the gallery label
18 x 24 in, 45.7 x 61 cm
Estimate: $30,000 - $40,000 CAD
Sold for: $46,250
Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave
PROVENANCE
Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, 2003
Private Collection, Vancouver
LITERATURE
Mireille Eagon et al., Mary Pratt, The Rooms and Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2013, pages 17 - 18 and 41
Mary Pratt is one of Canada’s most important Realist painters, and her work is in the collections of museums across the country. She is known for her sensitive and technically masterful depictions of everyday objects, such as tea services, fish fillets on tinfoil or glass jelly jars—the “stuff of life…that everyone touches every day,” as she described it. This scene of domestic food preparation is a showcase of light, shadow and reflections on surfaces—from the brilliant sheen of light on the metal bowl to the ethereal reflections in the window and on the sill; even the knife has striped reflections. Pratt stated, “To me, the surface is the given reality—the thin skin that shapes and holds those objects, which we recognize as symbols. The fact of their place in the order of our lives is what I find most interesting.” Pratt looks closely and finds the beauty in what is close at hand, illuminates it and reveals the sensuality in its texture, colour and shape, and ultimately challenges us to look more closely ourselves at what is around us.
Estimate: $30,000 - $40,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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