Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Literature
Terry Rigelhof, Philip Surrey (1910-1990): Retrospective Exhibition, Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, 2004, page 2
Phillip Surrey was a figurative painter with an enduring interest in human subjects within urban nightscapes. He occupied a unique place within twentieth-century Canadian art history, which was dominated largely by landscape painting in the 1930s and 1940s and abstraction in the 1950s and 60s. For most of his career, Surrey used Montreal as his stage, arranging settings of pedestrians wandering the usually empty streets. In “Place Ville Marie Study”, Surrey creates an imagined and cinematic nocturnal scene, emphasized by the black and white palette, of women walking briskly in downtown Montreal. In the background is a mysterious barren landscape, creating a stark contrast to the urban scene that appears to end most abruptly.
A prime example of Phillip Surrey's signature nocturnal urban scenes, “Place Ville Marie Study” is alive with activity. A skilled interpreter of both physical and psychological space, Surrey was known for depicting Montreal’s streets and their inhabitants. His studies of isolation within society add emotional depth to these urban scenes. Recognized as the “leading exponent of urban landscape painting in Canada,” Philip Surrey received the Order of Canada in 1982; the citation reads: “His Montreal street scenes convey an emotive vision of the modern city, with its anonymous crowds and individual solitudes. His expressive style and a poetic humanitarianism constitute a unique contribution to Canadian art.”
