St. Lawrence Market

Estate of the artist Sotheby’s Canada, auction, Toronto, November 24, 2008, lot 196 Private Collection, Ontario

A Toronto native, Peter Clapham Sheppard found his artistic inspiration in a broad range of subject matter, including landscapes, portraits, still lifes, city and harbour scenes. The painter bore witness to the steady construction and urbanization that took place in Canadian and American cities during the first half of the twentieth century, which inspired much of his artistic oeuvre. In this regard, Sheppard saw himself as best aligned with the contemporaneous American society of artists known as the Eight, and later the Ashcan School, rather than Canadian art movements of the time. Members of these groups depicted the bustling streets of New York City in a colourful, expressive and anti-academic manner. Sheppard exemplifies this approach in many of his urban scenes, including paintings of Toronto, Montreal, and New York. The vibrant canvas “St. Lawrence Market” embodies these anti-aesthetic intentions in its decorative colour paletteand contemporary reflection of middle-class urban life. The centre of the composition is occupied by a horizontal band of wooden barrels and boxes painted in a harmonious combination of green, yellow, periwinkle and peach. P.C. Sheppard was particularly captivated by subjects involving a human presence, particularly crowds in city streets, markets, county fairs, circuses and harbour scenes. Author and art historian Tom Smart writes in his recent book on Sheppard that “[i]n artistic terms, Sheppard identified with human subjects in gritty urban settings.” Smart elaborates further on Sheppard’s talent in painting city scenes, remarking that he “captured an essential liveliness, apparently easily, gesture and rhythms of line and colour simulate as if by magic the cacophony and harmonies of his subjects.” Sheppard’s “St. Lawrence Market” serves as a colourful and visually appealing image and record of Toronto’s history.