Prelude to the Afternoon of a Moose, L’apres midi d’un orignal (Baie-St-Paul, Quebec), 2001

Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, “Charles Pachter”, Toronto, 1992, page 41, plates 48, 51, 53, 55, 59-66 for further works by the artist which feature the moose subject.

As a child, Charles Pachter came face-to-face with a moose at the 1947 Canadian National Exhibition, an encounter which would later echo through the artist’s catalogue of work, the creature acting as an iconic figure of Canadian identity. Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov notes that, for Pachter, the moose was an “elusive animal he would consider the ultimate symbol of the Canadian psyche.” While his earliest depictions of the animal would share focus with Queen Elizabeth II (the artist describing the unlikely duo as “Monarchs of the North”), the moose continues to appear with regularity within Pachter’s oeuvre, the artist routinely setting the mighty but stoic animal within varying landscapes. Standing calmly on the shore of Baie-St.-Paul, the moose’s powerful silhouette here plays both in contrast and harmony with the warmly composed beach landscape.