Artwork by Doris Jean McCarthy,  Bed and Breakfast at Cashel, Connemara

Doris McCarthy
Bed and Breakfast at Cashel, Connemara

watercolour
signed lower right
15 x 22 ins ( 38.1 x 55.9 cms )

Auction Estimate: $3,500.00$2,500.00 - $3,500.00

Price Realized $3,220.00
Sale date: November 23rd 2017

Provenance:
Wynick/Tuck, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Literature:
Murray Whyte, “Doris McCarthy exhibit speaks to the artist as lover of life”, Toronto Star, June 27, 2010
One of Canada’s premier landscape artists, Doris McCarthy said in a 2004 interview with Harold Klunder: “I was influenced very strongly by the tradition of going out into nature and painting what was there. I bought it. And I still buy it.” Though she is known primarily for her depictions of the Canadian wilderness and the Arctic, McCarthy also painted many landscapes throughout the world. In 1951, on sabbatical, she spent over a year painting in Europe, and in 1961, she travelled throughout Asia, painting landscapes in locations such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia and countless other countries. A late watercolour, “Bed and Breakfast at Cashel, Connemara” serves as a record of the artist’s travels on the coast of western Ireland. Painting mainly in oils and watercolours, McCarthy developed a personal style that was consistently praised for its vitality, boldness and skillful explorations of hard-edged angles, form and colour.

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Doris Jean McCarthy
(1910 - 2010) RCA, OSA

Born in Calgary, Alberta, McCarthy attended the Ontario College of Art from 1926–1930 where she was awarded various scholarships and prizes. She became a teacher shortly thereafter and taught most frequently at Central Technical School in downtown Toronto from 1932 until she retired in 1972. She spent most of her life living and working in Scarborough, Ontario though she travelled abroad extensively and painted the landscapes of various countries including: Costa Rica, Spain, Italy, Japan, India, England and Ireland. McCarthy was probably best-known for her Canadian landscapes and her depictions of Arctic icebergs.

McCarthy's work has been exhibited and collected extensively in Canada and abroad, in both public and private art galleries including: The National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, and The Doris McCarthy Art Gallery. McCarthy also penned three autobiographies chronicling the various stages of her life: A Fool in Paradise (Toronto: MacFarlane, Walter & Ross, 1990), The Good Wine (Toronto: MacFarlane, Walter & Ross, 1991), and Ninety Years Wise (Toronto: Second Story Press, 2004). She was also the recipient of the Order of Ontario, the Order of Canada; honorary degrees from the University of Calgary, the University of Toronto, Trent University, the University of Alberta, and Nipissing University; and an honorary fellowship from the Ontario College of Art and Design. She died on November 25, 2010.