CANADIAN POST~WAR & CONTEMPORARY ART - Heffel

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HEFFEL FINE <strong>ART</strong> AUCTION HOUSE 1910 WILLIAM KURELEKARCA OC OSA 1927 ~ 1977After the Blizzard in Manitobamixed media on board, initialed and dated 1967and on verso signed, titled, dated and inscribeddonated to Mrs. Gerald Hollyer and for KingsmillCompany in gratitude for services renderened [sic]in purchase of a house 196520 x 28 1/2 in, 50.8 x 72.4 cmPROVENANCE:Acquired directly from the Artist, 1967Private Collection, TorontoLITERATURE:Philip Earnshaw, director, The Passion of Christ According to Saint Matthew:William Kurelek, film, 2005In addition to being one of Canada’s most accomplished and interestingartists, William Kurelek wrote and illustrated many award~winningchildren’s books. His joyous explorations of childhood themes in his artmade this a natural extension of his work. And while his art and writingscan be enjoyed for their simple and exuberant content, to do so is to miss adeeper layer of meaning. A child of the Depression and the oldest of sevenchildren in a hard~working Ukrainian Orthodox immigrant family, hisyouth was spent on the open prairie of Manitoba. He showed an earlyaptitude for drawing, but this career path was not supported by hisfarming parents, particularly his father. Their troubled relationship was“an agony to them both”, and Kurelek would ultimately suffer depressionand suicidal despair. Largely self~taught, he attended the Ontario Collegeof Art briefly, but was drifting and searching for a path. He traveled to SanMiguel de Allende, Mexico, where he discovered the Nicolaïdes methodof drawing, which he would later credit with helping him discover hisown style. Keenly interested in religious iconography and wanting to seethe world’s great art, he traveled to England in the early 1950s. There, hismental health failed and he was treated for depression. While in thehospital, he painted the cathartic masterwork The Maze, wherein heexplores in painful detail the unhappiness in his life. He achieved successas a painter as a result of his pain, and in an interesting twist, a piousCatholic nurse who cared for him during this time inspired Kurelek torevisit religion, and he converted to Catholicism in 1957.Returning to Canada as an established painter, he explored the issues inhis life through his art. His subtle blend of everyday events and religiousthemes are engaging on many levels. Presented to us as Canadian scenes,Old World religious imagery is everywhere in his work. Families walk tochurch, priests come for dinner, mothers and sons appear together inharmony. The scenes are full of the simple beauty of rural life ~ families atrest and play, celebrating birthdays, tending animals, doing the mundanechores. Additionally, these everyday acts are given deeper meaning in thedetails and surface treatment of the works. One might compare thesurface of Kurelek’s paintings, which are hard and smooth, oftenglass~like, to inlaid enamel and religious icons of the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries. His unique method of incising dried but uncuredpaint with a ballpoint pen, and using coloured pencils to etch, scratch anddraw on the paint’s surface, furthers this effect. The contrast of the richsurface and the often simple subjects makes for an interestingjuxtaposition of form and image. This is particularly the case in After theBlizzard in Manitoba where we see a group of children playing wildly onthe cliff of snow cut by a plough after a heavy blizzard. The scene is largelycomprised of snow, but handled with Kurelek’s unique style, the vastwhiteness itself is a dance of light and shadow as the colour of the skyrepeats in the children’s snowsuits and the distant sleigh. The scene isalmost fantastical, as the snow blankets the telephone poles almost totheir tops which jut, cross~like, from the surface of the massive drift.Without worry of injury, children slide, tunnel and climb. Only the doghesitates to bound into the fray. The work is absolutely joyous ~ childrenplaying in the snow ~ yet, we are reminded by Kurelek of the brevity ofyouth as the adult in the scene heads out of the picture in a sleigh, his backto the fun, intent on some serious adult purpose.ESTIMATE: $50,000 ~ 70,000
HEFFEL FINE <strong>ART</strong> AUCTION HOUSE 2011 YVES GAUCHERARCA 1934 ~ 2000NT~G~JL / 68 I ~ Nat Gris Iacrylic on canvas, on verso signed on the canvas,titled twice, on the canvas NT~G~JL / 68 Iand on the stretcher Nat Gris I and dated 1968on the canvas36 x 36 in, 91.4 x 91.4 cmPROVENANCE:Galerie Agnès Lefort, MontrealBy descent to the present Private Collection, OntarioLITERATURE:William Withrow, Contemporary Canadian Painting, 1972, page 172Roald Nasgaard, Yves Gaucher: The Fifteen~Year Perspective / 1963 ~ 1978,1979, page 79NT~G~JL / 68 I ~ Nat Gris I embraces a minimalist aesthetic in order toevoke perceptual processes, and is part of Yves Gaucher’s Grey on Grey11series. This series began in December 1967 with Gaucher initiallyintending a small production of approximately 12 paintings, yet byOctober 1969 when he finished, over 60 canvases had been completed.Each painting in the series was given a title that consisted of a letter /number formula, denoting the colours used, along with the inclusionof the date.Music was an important influence on Gaucher’s work and in NT~G~JL /68 I ~ Nat Gris I , the monochromatic canvas is punctuated by shorthorizontal lines known as signals, that draw the viewer’s eye in and out ofthe canvas, creating a visual rhythm. Roald Nasgaard explains the signalsas “impulses of sound moving through and activating the silence of thefield.” William Withrow further relates that, “with an understanding ofGaucher’s unique success in bringing together the musical and the visual,the viewer is enabled to appreciate the richness behind the austeresurfaces of his work.” These Grey on Grey paintings went on to achieveenormous success internationally.ESTIMATE: $12,000 ~ 15,000
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CANADIAN POST~WAR & CONTEMPORARY ART - Heffel

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