CANADIAN POST~WAR & CONTEMPORARY ART - Heffel

HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE 11
4 JACK LEONARD SHADBOLT
BCSFA CGP CSPWC OC RCA 1909 ~ 1998
Chinatown
watercolour and charcoal on paper,
signed and dated 1968
26 x 40 in, 66 x 101.6 cm
PROVENANCE:
Acquired directly from the Artist
Private Collection, Ontario
LITERATURE:
Scott Watson, Jack Shadbolt Drawings, 1994, page 7
One of Canada’s most distinguished West Coast artists, Jack Shadbolt had
a long and illustrious career. Shadbolt was omnidirectional, working in
styles varying from abstraction to realism. Although the year of this
watercolour is 1968, it relates to the work influenced by Social Realism
that he was doing in the 1940s. This is typical of Shadbolt, who did not
work in a linear fashion ~ he would circle around to previous directions,
and was known to return to paintings decades later to change them. Scott
Watson writes, “He works in large achronological circles, mapping out a
shifting terrain ~ some might call it a war zone ~ between the axes of his
temperament and the means of expression he has mastered.” In
Chinatown, Shadbolt finds great visual interest in the ramshackle
structure with its organic, casual construction surrounded by random
pieces of lumber and other flotsam at its base ~ the house rising above the
chaos. In this, although the house is man’s creation, Chinatown relates to
one of Shadbolt’s deepest themes ~ that of the world of organic birth and
decay in nature.
ESTIMATE: $6,000 ~ 8,000
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