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LOT 057

ARCA BCSFA CGP OSA P11
1897 - 1960
Canadian

Cathedral Light
oil on canvas
signed and dated 1955 and on verso signed, titled and inscribed variously
31 1/2 x 39 in, 80 x 99.1 cm

Estimate: $20,000 - $30,000 CAD

Sold for: $15,000

Preview at:

PROVENANCE
Roberts Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto

EXHIBITED
Roberts Gallery, Toronto, Jock Macdonald: A Retrospective, January 5 - 20, 1962


In 1952, Jock Macdonald’s work hung in the Canadian Abstract Exhibition, a foundational non-objective painting exhibition organized by Alexandra Luke at Adelaide House in Oshawa, touring to Toronto’s Hart House the following year. In 1954, the Abstract Expressionist group Painters Eleven, of which Macdonald and Luke were members, held its first gallery exhibition, at Toronto’s Roberts Gallery. The show was arranged by fellow Painters Eleven member Jack Bush, whose dealer was a young Jack Wildridge, then at the beginning of his impressive career as the gallery’s director. The exhibition led to a business relationship between Macdonald and Wildridge, and by 1960, preparations for a major solo exhibition were under way. Plans were sidetracked, however, when Macdonald died unexpectedly in December of that year. A memorial exhibition of over 80 works was then held in 1962, including this impressive canvas. Its background is pervaded by bright, almost hallucinatory colour, over which a thick, textural black is gesturally applied. The swirling, organic forms magnificently produce the effect of both the titular cathedral’s stained glass and the wonder of a Vincent van Gogh night sky.


Estimate: $20,000 - $30,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


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