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LOT 014

ARCA CSGA OC
1935 - 2022
Canadian

Tessier's Barn
oil on linen on board
signed and dated Feb. 1968 and on verso signed, titled, dated and inscribed "oil on linen (primed with acrylic) over masonite" and "Salmonier, Newfoundland"
23 x 36 in, 58.4 x 91.4 cm

Estimate: $70,000 - $90,000 CAD

Sold for: $73,250

Preview at:

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Toronto
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, November 7, 1996, lot 178
Private Collection, Vancouver
Sold sale of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, July 15, 2020, lot 14

LITERATURE
Joyce Zemans, Christopher Pratt: A Retrospective, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1985, page 24, reproduced page 24

EXHIBITED
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston Spring Exhibition, May 4 – June 2, 1968, catalogue #67
Vancouver Art Gallery, Christopher Pratt: A Retrospective, November 23, 1985 – January 26, 1986, traveling in 1986 to the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Memorial University Gallery, St. John's; and Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax


Christopher Pratt is one of Canada’s most prominent realists. Born in Newfoundland, he has lived and worked nearly all his life in Salmonier, on the Avalon Peninsula. Real-life scenes of Newfoundland are the basis of his images, but his paintings are metaphors of perception. Regarding this tranquil painting, Joyce Zemans wrote: “In 1968, as if debating his course towards the abstract, Pratt painted Tessier’s Barn. This work, like that of Andrew Wyeth and Charles Burchfield, explores the picturesque and romantic aspects of the architectural image. Paint peels, shingles fall, the seasons pass: the timeless landscape of field and ocean are replaced by the temporality of deciduous trees.” Pratt’s atmosphere is delicate, as if suffused by a soft mist that becomes more palpable in the layers of trees behind the house. His palette, with pastel tones of rose, beige and grey, together with the diffuse, even light of the overcast day, gives an overall impression of a muted, warm light. Everything is very still, and the scene exudes a subtle self-awareness, reminiscent of the house paintings of the Belgian symbolist painter William Degouve de Nuncques.


Estimate: $70,000 - $90,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


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