signed lower right; the Artist’s estate stamp on the reverse
10.5 × 8.5 in (26.7 × 21.6 cm)
Auction Estimate:$3,000 - $4,000
Sale date:November 20 - 29, 2013
Price Realized
$6,325
(including Buyer's Premium)
Provenance
The Estate of the Artist.
Private Collection, Ontario.
Literature
Ross King, “Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven”, Vancouver/Kleinburg, 2011, page 383.
Examining contemporaries to the Group of Seven, Ross King points to P.C. Sheppard as a “gifted painter of wilderness landscapes, maritime scenes and majestic Toronto cityscapes. The latter in particular, in works like “The Building of the Bloor Street Viaduct“ (1916) and “The Arrival of the Circus” (1919) marked him as a rare talent, well versed in modern painterly techniques and possessed of a visionary approach to the urban landscape.” Similar to his depiction of the viaduct's creation, in this work Sheppard delivers the building of another historic Toronto landmark, Union Station, here in the first of its six years of construction. Providing a portal to the Toronto of a century before, Sheppard injects depths of mood, colour and beauty into a moment of the historic evolution of Toronto's centre.
