Sold for: $105,300

PROVENANCE
Gallery One, Toronto
Private Collection, Ontario

LITERATURE
David Blackwood, David Blackwood: Ephraim Kelloway's Door Paintings 1985 - 1990, Gallery One, 1990, foreword, reproduced, unpaginated
David Blackwood, Ephraim Kelloway’s Door, Abbozzo Gallery, foreword written at Port Hope, August 2010, http://david-blackwood.abbozzogallery.com/ephraim-kelloways-door.htm, accessed August 20, 2013

EXHIBITED
Gallery One, Toronto, David Blackwood: Ephraim Kelloway's Door Paintings 1985 - 1990, October 6 - November 1, 1990, catalogue #6

In Wesleyville, Newfoundland, the Kelloway family owned a small house with several grey, weathered outbuildings. In the 1950s Ephraim Kelloway started to paint his shed door, first green, and then over the next two years a succession of changing colours. David Blackwood recounts, “Over a two year period it changed colours frequently, from blue to white to black to brown to red, as Ephraim found paint. When Marguerite Tuff had some pink left over from a girl’s bedroom, it found its way onto the shed door. Some discarded aluminum stovepipe paint changed it again to silver.” Ephraim then moved on to enhancing the surface of the door, “with a variety of hinges, a horseshoe, a half model of a boat and cutouts of brightly coloured and lettered tin. The final result was a richly painted and decorated icon.” This door fascinated Blackwood, resulting in an etching and a stunning series of paintings, and he stated, “it has become a touchstone for me, an object dense with layers of both personal and universal meaning that is so very symbolic of Newfoundland.”

All prices are in Canadian Dollars