Mary Frances Pratt studied Fine Arts at Mount Allison University under Alex Colville, who guided her artistic approach to shift towards realism. She married fellow art student Christopher Pratt in 1957, obtained her degree in 1961 and had four children by 1964. While her husband painted full-time, Pratt did so only when she had a spare moment in her homemaking duties. She found her subjects in her daily routine, with a focus on food – jars of jelly, bowls of fruit, raw meat and fish. Pratt elevated these images of everyday household objects from the banal to something beautiful and significant. With regards to her choice of subject matter, the artist declared: “My strength has always been to find something where others found nothing. There’s a depth to everything, and everything is worth looking at, like those roses that are now past their prime. Everything is worth consideration. I really believe that.”
Pratt was particularly interested in capturing effects of light to add a dramatic or theatrical aspect to her artwork. She painted from photographic slides projected onto a canvas, so as to capture and accurately depict the light of one particular moment. “Salmon in
a Pan” exemplifies Pratt’s celebration of the ordinary, a pervading theme throughout the 1970s. Its year of completion coincides with an exhibition of her paintings and drawings at the National Gallery, marking a breakthrough for wider recognition of the artist’s work. Pratt currently resides in Fredericton and is widely considered to be one of Canada’s finest still-life realist artists.
