Queen and Polar Bear by Charles Pachter

Provenance:
Private Collection, Toronto

Literature:
David Lasker, ‘Canadian Artist Charles Pachter on His Controversial Decision to Paint the Queen Riding A Moose’, “Zoomer Magazine” [online], June 12, 2020
Leonard Wise, “Charles Pachter Canada’s Artist”, Toronto, 2017, page 98

Throughout his career, Charles Pachter has taken Canada’s history as inspiration to create iconic tongue-in-cheek pop imagery of Canadian national symbols. Leonard Wise notes that Pachter’s artwork ranges from “pun to nostalgia, from humour to social commentary, seriously and humourously questioning what it means to be Canadian.”

Pachter’s fascination with royalty led him to begin depicting Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, in Canadian settings. These depictions were perhaps inspired by the artist’s childhood memories of sitting atop his father’s shoulders awaiting the arrival of the royal cavalcade to drive by on a street in Toronto for a glimpse of the Queen and her white gloved hand flashing by. As Charles Pachter states in a recent interview, “In art history, there is a precedent for this mystique about women and animals. There’s Europa and the bull, Diana and the faun, Lady Godiva naked on the horse.... I was 10 and the CBC broadcast the coronation [of Elizabeth]. This pretty young princess being crowned with diamonds, emeralds and ermine was the biggest thing to happen in popular culture in Canada.” “Queen and Polar Bear” reflects this enthrallment with the British royals. A polar bear, a powerful symbol of strength and endurance, strolls by the profile of Queen Elizabeth, meeting the gaze of the viewer. As with the iconic moose depicted by Pachter in many of his artworks, the polar bear is a symbolic representation of the Canadian psyche.