signed with monogram and dated 1977 lower right; titled on the reverse
20 × 20 in (50.8 × 50.8 cm)
Auction Estimate:$30,000 - $40,000
Sale date:November 22, 2016
Price Realized
$34,500
(including Buyer's Premium)
Provenance
Private Collection, British Columbia
Andrew Kear writes “Candy Floss Clouds was painted in the last year of Kurelek’s life, a time when he was preoccupied with his last monumental landscape series, ‘Big Lonely’ and the drawings and paintings he made on his final trip to Ukraine. ‘Candy Floss Clouds’ doesn’t appear to be an off-shoot of either of these final projects, nor does it appear anywhere in Isaacs’ records. Theories are that it was done either as a gift for a friend (although the lack of any commemoration on the back of the piece likely discounts this theory) or for an unrealized publication (as the square dimensions might suggest). It perhaps represents one of Kurelek’s veiled criticisms of secular liberal society, a theme we get in works like ‘Harvest of our Mere Humanism Years’ (1974, Corporate Collection, Toronto) and ‘The Dream of Mayor Crombie in the Glen Stewart Ravine’ (1974, City of Toronto).
Andrew Kear is the Curator of Historical Canadian Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. He was previously Assistant Curator and Registrar with the Tom Thomson Art Gallery and co-curated the 2011/2012 major retrospective of William Kurelek’s work.
