Sold for: $22,500

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Vancouver
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 9, 2001, lot 262
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
David Blackwood, Ephraim Kelloway’s Door, Paintings 1985 - 1990, Gallery One, 1990, foreword, reproduced, unpaginated

David Blackwood is a remarkable chronicler of early outport life in Newfoundland in his extraordinary paintings and prints. One of the many tales of the town of Wesleyville in Newfoundland concerns the Kelloway family, who were the Blackwood family’s next-door neighbours during David’s childhood. The Kelloway house and outbuildings stood out against other local buildings – instead of being brightly painted, the clapboard structures remained natural grey. In the mid-1950s, Ephraim Kelloway began painting the door of his shed in different colours over several summers, reputedly changing it almost 50 times. August Door ’59 shows a particularly rich colouration that month, with gorgeous tones of red, orange, purple and green. Objects were also attached to the door, and in this work we see hinges, a horseshoe, and half of a model boat. Kelloway’s painted door made a strong impression on Blackwood – he was so fascinated by it that he later acquired it, moving it next to his Wesleyville studio building. He created drawings, watercolours and a series of paintings based on this decorated icon, stating that this motif became “a personal voyage of exploration and discovery in painting.”

All prices are in Canadian Dollars